My Majestic Rose continues swift ascent, wins Summertime Oaks

With Jerry Hollendorfer’s Sneaking Out and Bob Baffert’s Flor de La Mar ensuring a solid pace, Kentucky invader My Majestic Rose was well in-hand early and rallied strongly around the far turn in route to a half-length win in Sunday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Summertime Oaks at Santa Anita Park.

Ridden by Flavien Prat and conditioned by fellow Frenchman Rodolphe Brisset, My Majestic Rose, a daughter of Majestic Warrior, got a mile and one sixteenth in 1:45.08.

“We had a good trip,” noted Prat, who registered his fourth win through the first six races. “She relaxed very well and she was going real easy up the backside. At the three-eighths, I asked her and she was right there for me. When she made the lead (approaching the quarter pole), she waited on that other filly (Sneaking Out), but then she got back to business.”

A one-mile maiden winner on a muddy track at Churchill Downs on May 2, My Majestic Rose, who was making her first stakes assignment, was off at 5-1 in a field of five sophomore fillies and paid $13.80, $4.60 and $2.80.

Owned and bred in Kentucky by Judy Hicks, My Majestic Rose, who is out of the Pleasant Tap mare Victory On Tap, picked up $120,000 for the win, boosting her earnings to $207,028 from an overall mark of 6-2-2-1.

“It wasn’t really a gamble to bring her out here, not to me,” said Brisset.  “It was a small field and at the end of the day, if we ran third, it’s still black type. So it was more difficult to find a way here than it was to make the decision. Thankfully, Tex Sutton (air transport) helped us, we put her on a plane and she got out here to train.”

For her part, Sneaking Out, who tried two turns and had a four-game winning streak snapped Saturday, ran too good to lose as she battled the winner head and head the final five sixteenths of a mile after repelling a stubborn challenge from Flor de La Mar.

“She ran absolutely huge,” said Van Dyke. “It’s a shame she got pointless pressure.”

Fractions on the race were 23.49, 47.44, 1:12.49 and 1:38.30.