Gamine stretches out, holds on in a fast time at Oaklawn Park

By the slimmest of margins, Gamine successfully stretched out Saturday at Oaklawn Park, where a filly that trainer Bob Baffert has called a “superstar in the making” edged out Speech in a 1 1/16-mile allowance optional claiming race for 3-year-old fillies.

A $1.8 million purchase for owner Michael Lund Petersen, Gamine entered off a 6 1/4-length debut victory March 7 at Santa Anita Park. But that day, she had just three overmatched rivals to beat going 3/4 of a mile.

“I was trying to get her in at Santa Anita and I couldn’t get her in because a lot of people knew about her, so the race wouldn’t fill,” Baffert said ahead of Saturday’s return race. “She had been ready to run for a month. I wanted to run her back short one more time. I’d like to have run her seven-eighths or something, but then they quit running here.

“...Then, this race came up. I would have preferred like a mile, but we need to get going. We’ll see what she does going two turns for the first time.”

Gamine had enough in the tank to defeat Speech, another California-based filly whose connections had considered running in stakes company this weekend at Oaklawn, by a neck. It was well back to Queen Bridget in third.

Gamine clicked through fractions of 23.29 for the opening quarter mile and 46.54 for the half with Speech sitting behind in the pocket, a comfortable fourth. Under jockey Martin Garcia, Gamine came off the turn alone as Speech tried to run her down.

While the win wasn't impressive in margin, Gamine's final time was 1:41.91, a tick faster than Swiss Skydiver’s victorious Fantasy Stakes (G3) effort on Friday going the same distance.

Gamine now appears to be a candidate for the rescheduled, June 6 Santa Anita Oaks (G2) back home. Baffert also campaigns the impressive April 19 Oaklawn maiden winner Merneith, a daughter of American Pharoah, who pulled away by 10 1/4 lengths in the slop.