Multiple Grade I winner Gamine heads 15 nominees to the $200,000-guaranteed Grade 2 Great Lady M. Stakes while Hudson Ridge, fresh off consecutive turf victories – including the Cinema Stakes – is among eight 3-year-olds nominated to the $150,000-guaranteed Grade 3 Los Alamitos Derby.
The two races will be run for the eighth time at Los Alamitos Race Course in Cypress, Calif. The Los Alamitos Derby will be offered Saturday, July 3 while the Great Lady M. will be contested Monday, July 5, the final day of the Summer Thoroughbred Festival.
Owned by Michael L. Peterson and trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, Gamine has won seven of eight starts, including Grade 1 tallies in 2020 in the Acorn at Belmont Park, the Test at Saratoga, the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint at Keeneland, and the Derby City Distaff last month at Churchill Downs.
The 4-year-old daughter of Into Mischief and the Kafwain mare Peggy Jane has banked $1,286,500.
Baffert, who has won the Great Lady M. three times at Los Alamitos – Fantastic Style (2015) and Marley's Freedom (2018-2019),– also nominated recent impressive maiden winner Illumination and Qahira, who has won half of her 10 starts and earned $249,400 for Baoma Corporation.
A daughter of Cairo Prince and the Bates Motel mare Motel Lass, the 5-year-old mare owns a local victory. She won an optional claimer at Los Alamitos during the 2019 Summer Thoroughbred Festival.
The other nominees include Angelcents, Bella Vita, Candura, Dynasty of Her Own, Edgeway, Eyes Open, Five Pics Please, Miss Stormy D, Road Rager, Scotish Star, and Stellar Sound.
Owned by Baffert's wife Jill and Double L Racing, Hudson Ridge, an American Pharoah colt out of the Galileo mare Shell House earned his maiden win in the Cinema May 23, then returned 26 days later to win an optional claimer as the 9-5 favorite.
An earner of $112,940 in six starts, Hudson Ridge has raced only once on dirt, finishing fourth in a one-mile maiden contest March 5.
Baffert's other nominees to the Los Alamitos Derby, which he has won four times in a row and five of the last six, are Defunded, runner-up behind The Chosen Vron in the Affirmed June 13, and Classier, who was a distant third in that Grade III.
The other nominees are Ingest, It's My House, Mr. Impossible, Back Ring Luck, and Mucho Del Oro.
Entries for the Los Alamitos Derby will be taken Wednesday, June 30 while the Great Lady M. will be drawn Friday, July 2.
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