Forged Steel ships and wins big in Hollywood Gold Cup

In a dominating performance, Forged Steel led at every call and prevailed by 9 1/2 lengths Monday to win the Grade 2, $200,000 Hollywood Gold Cup, a 1 1/4-mile race for five horses, ages 3 and up, on the fast main track at Santa Anita.

Saffie Joseph Jr. trained the Gold Cup winner for the second year in a row. Skippylongstocking won the race for him last year. It was the first stakes victory in 10 tries for the 4-year-old gray colt by Vekoma.

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One of only three eastern shippers on the entire card, Forged Steel (3-1) drew away from stalking favorite Malarchuk (9-5) coming out of the second turn after he established early fractions of 23.22, 46.73, 1:11.25 and 1:35.66.

Ridden by Flavien Prat, 4-year-old Forged Steel cruised through the finish with a winning time of 2:01.58, the fastest time for the race since Accelerate’s 2:01.38 in 2018.

Malarchuk, ridden by Juan Hernández, held for second in a photo with third-place Mc Vay (8-1) and fourth-place British Isles (7-2). Subsanador (5-2) wound up last.

Forged Steel returned $8.20, $5.60 and $3.40; Malarchuk $3.60 and $2.60; and Mc Vay $3.40.

For Prat, the win came after an adventurous trip from New York to Santa Anita that forced him to miss his scheduled mount one race earlier.

“We got delayed for 3 1/2 hours. It was a very long trip,” Prat said. “We stayed probably seven or eight hours on the plane. I’m just glad to be here. ... The horse ran a good race. It was my first time aboard him. He had a good run in his past races, and he showed another good run here today.”

This was Prat’s second time winning the Hollywood Gold Cup. He also won in 2021 with Country Grammer for trainer Bob Baffert, who had no horses running on the Monday card.

Owned by C2 Racing Stable and Mathis Stables, Forged Steel won two allowance races this year, most recently May 2 at Oaklawn. He improved to 18: 5-3-1 with $416,130 in earnings.