Gilded Gem beats stablemate in Las Flores

When the speedball Candy's Pleasure was scratched at the gate before Saturday's $100,000 Las Flores Stakes at Santa Anita, it might have been taken as an inauspicious omen for the closers, and a positive for the Bob Baffert-trained Mother Ruth, who figured to inherit the role of controlling speed. But it was another Baffert runner, Gaines-Gentry Thoroughbreds and Serengeti Stable's homebred Glided Gem, who turned conventional wisdom on its head with a rousing last-to-first rally.

Ridden by Joel Rosario, Gilded Gem burst clear down the stretch to spearhead an all-Baffert exacta with the barn's third entrant, Subsidized. Only the Bruce Headley-trained Silver Swallow foiled a Baffert trifecta by overtaking Mother Ruth late for third.

In the early going, 8-5 favorite Mother Ruth sprinted to the fore and rattled off splits of :21 4/5 and :44 2/5. Broken Dreams and Silver Swallow were giving chase, while Subsidized bided her time in fourth and Gilded Gem was unhurried at the tail of the five-horse field.