Illuminant Cruises on Turf at Santa Anita

Breaking from the rail, favored Illuminant showed good tactical speed and took command turning for home to take Thursday’s $60,000 Santa Anita allowance feature by 4 ½ lengths under Flavien Prat while negotiating one mile on turf in 1:35.36.

Owned by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and trained by Michael McCarthy, Illuminant switched back to the turf following a dull fourth place finish on the main track in the Grade II, 1 1/16 miles La Canada Stakes here on Jan. 16 and appears headed back to graded stakes competition.

“I’ll go ahead and enjoy this for a minute, but in the next 30 to 60 days, she could pop up somewhere in the Midwest, but I’m not sure where,” said McCarthy, a former longtime assistant to Todd Pletcher.  “That’s up to everybody at Eclipse.  We’ll sit down and talk about it.”

Heavily favored at 6-5 in a field of nine older fillies and mares, the 4-year-old Pennsylvania-bred daughter of Quality Road paid $4.40, $3.60 and $2.80.  With the winner’s share of $36,000, she increased her earnings to $152,650.  She now has three wins, all on turf, from nine overall starts.

Ridden by Gary Stevens, Journey On rallied from fourth to take the place at 5-1 and paid $5.40 and $4.20.

Pacesetter Little Bit Lovely tired late, finishing a half length back in third.  Ridden by Joe Talamo, she was off at 21-1 and paid $9.00 to show.

Fractions on the race were 23.34, 46.75, 1:11.59 and 1:23.47.