Gift Box to pass on San Pasqual, target Santa Anita Handicap

Trainer John Sadler considers Gift Box to be one of his best horses in training but said Wednesday “how good is to be determined.” Connections, however, aren’t in too much of a hurry to find out.

The 6-year-old son of Twirling Candy, who won a Grade 2 race in his first start for the barn, will skip this weekend’s San Pasqual Stakes (G2) in favor of waiting for the March 9 Santa Anita Handicap (G1).

“To really run the good (Ragozin) numbers, you need spacing if you want to keep them at that high level,” said Sadler, an ardent fan of studying the data-driven sheets. “Everybody’s different. A horse like him that ran such a big number the first time, you want to space it right for the next time.”

As with the recently named Champion Older Horse Accelerate, Gift Box is campaigned by Hronis Racing and ridden by Joel Rosario. He came to Sadler as a private purchase previously trained by Chad Brown on the East Coast, where Gift Box had last raced in March and last ran in a stakes race in 2016.

In the San Antonio, he beat previous stakes winners Battle of Midway, Dabster and Beach View, among others, making a three-wide bid off the turn before going on to prevail by a half length.

“We’re talking today, and it’s the first of February tomorrow,” Sadler said. “It’s an all-year approach.”

It worked out pretty well last year when Acclerate won six of seven starts stretching from February to the Breeders’ Cup Classic in November. “Yeah,” Sadler added with a laugh.

Overall, Gift Box has won four of 14 starts with earnings of more than $500,000. He has once before run the Big Cap’s 1 1/4-mile distance, finishing fourth in Arrogate’s record-setting Travers Stakes (G1) in 201.6.