Daughter emulated mother in the $101,000 Bayakoa Stakes Friday.
Nine years after Tiz Midnight won the inaugural running of the race at Los Alamitos, Midnight Memories did the same, scoring as the even-money favorite in the Grade 3 test for fillies and mares at the Cypress, Calif., track.
Racing for the same owner-trainer combination as Tiz Midnight, the 4-year-old Mastery filly was ready after a layoff of more than nine months, running down 7-5 second choice Desert Dawn in the final sixteenth of a mile to win by one length.
Owned by breeders Mike Pegram, Karl Watson and Paul Weitman and trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, Midnight Memories earned her fifth win in eight tries and pushed her earnings to $424,680. Three of her victories have come in graded events and she's only been worse than third once.
Ridden by Juan Hernandez, Midnight Memories completed the 1 1/16 miles in 1:42.84 and paid $4, $2.60 and $2.20.
The win was the second in a row for Baffert in the Bayakoa as he took the previous renewal in 2021 with As Time Goes By. The race was not run in 2022.
Desert Dawn, who was seeking her first win since the 2022 Santa Anita Oaks, got the jump on the eventual winner around the turn, opening a clear advantage into the lane, but ultimately had to settle for second for the fifth time in her career while nearly six lengths clear of stablemate Turnerloose.
Desert Dawn returned $2.20 and $2.10 while the show price on Turnerloose, the fourth choice in the field of seven at nearly 8-1, was $3.80. Ganadora, Smoothlikebuttah, Trouville and Violent Runner completed the order of finish.
Mike Marlow, Baffert's assistant trainer at Los Alamitos, thought Midnight Memories, who hadn't raced since finishing third in the G1 Beholder Mile March 11, was in trouble when Desert Dawn moved away from her.
“She had trained well for this, but, in all honesty, I thought she was done on the turn,'' said Marlow. “(Hernandez) started riding her pretty hard and at the three-eighths pole I thought to myself she's not going anywhere.
“Then Juan got her outside and she came back. He just said she didn't want to run into the kickback. He did a great job riding her. She showed a new dimension today coming from off the pace.''
The stakes win was the second in less than a week for Hernandez, who captured the G2 Starlet last weekend for Baffert aboard Nothing Like You.
“She broke sharp, but I let her settle off the two leaders (stablemate Ganadora and Violent Runner),'' said Hernandez, the all-time daytime thoroughbred meet leader at Los Alamitos with 16 stakes wins. “She doesn't like dirt in the face, so I tried to avoid that as much as I could down the backside.
“(Desert Dawn) got the jump on us turning for home, but once I swung this filly out in the stretch she really took off.''
Jockeys Jose Valdivia, Jr. and Armando Aguilar both doubled Friday. The former swept the early double with favored Class Clown in the first and Creative Way in the second while the latter scored with first time starter Toledo Rocket in the fifth and Dancing Soul in the seventh.
Racing resumes Saturday at Los Alamitos. Post time is 12:30 p.m.
The last of nine races is the G2, $200,000-guaranteed Los Alamitos Futurity for 2-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles.
Baffert entered a trio – Coach Prime, Wynstock and Wine Me Up – as he seeks to win the Futurity for the eighth time in 10 years at Los Alamitos. Scheduled post time for the Futurity is 4:28 p.m. PT.
The post Like Mother, Like Daughter: Midnight Memories Captures Bayakoa At Los Alamitos appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
