Flavien Prat, Santa Anita's runaway leading rider, seized the initiative aboard lightly raced Soothsay three furlongs from home and went on to a stellar half-length score over heavily favored Beautiful Gift in Saturday's Grade 2, $400,000 Santa Anita Oaks at Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif. Trained by Richard Mandella, Soothsay, in her second career start, got a mile and one sixteenth in 1:44.35.
“It (the pace) was pretty slow, so I thought twice and said 'Let's go, we better go now'” said Prat in reference to his bold move heading into the far turn. “I asked her at the three furlong pole and she went so easy. She responded really well.”
A 1 ½ length maiden winner going six furlongs on Feb. 26, Soothsay was off at 4-1 in a field of four sophomore fillies and paid $10.40 and $3.60 with no show wagering.
“We expected a lot of her from the first start and from that start until now, she just grew up,” said Mandella, who notched his fourth career win in the Oaks. “You kind of see it happening. Otherwise, we wouldn't do something like this. If you watched her last workout, you could see how serious she was. We'll see about the (Kentucky) Oaks (Grade I, April 30 at Churchill Downs). We asked a lot of her to do this, so we'll make sure we pare back whatever we need.”
Owned by Claiborne Farm, Perry Bass, II, Ramona Bass and Adele Dilschneider, Soothsay is a Kentucky-bred filly by Distorted Humor out of the Bernardini mare Spellbound. With the winner's share of $240,000, she sent her earnings to the $276,600 mark.
Although Beautiful Gift was sitting a seemingly perfect second, a half length off of pacesetter Moraz with three and a half furlongs to run, Moraz drifted out a bit, enabling the winner to scoot through at the rail and from the three furlong pole, Beautiful Gift was unable to wrest control, finishing second, 5 ¼ lengths in front of Moraz.
Ridden by John Velazquez and off as the 4-5 favorite, Beautiful Gift paid $2.60 to place.
“The other horse cut the corner at the top of the stretch and I had to go pretty wide, so that was the difference between winning and losing the race right there,” said Velazquez. “The trip worked out just the way I planned it, except for the other horse getting through on the inside.”
With 170 Kentucky Oaks qualifying points at stake, Soothsay will receive 100, with 40, 20 and 10 points going to the second, third and fourth place (Javanica) finishers.
Fractions on the race were 24.34, 49.04, 1:13.18 and 1:38.08.
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