SANTA ANITA OAKS | PURSE: $400,000 | 3-YEAR-OLD | FILLIES | GRADE 1 | 1 1/16-MILES
Fashion Plate, staked to an early lead by jockey Gary Stevens, repulsed a bid from 6-5 favorite Ria Antonia to record her second Grade 1 victory in a row in the $400,000 Santa Anita Oaks April 5.
Winner of the Las Virgenes Stakes in similar front-running fashion Feb. 1, Arnold Zetcher and Michael Tabor's Fashion Plate prevailed stylishly by about 1 ½ lengths in a solid time of 1:42.97 for 1 1/16 miles on a fast Santa Anita Park main track.
Ria Antonia, the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies winner making her first start for trainer Bob Baffert, held second. It was a long ways back to third-place finisher Bajan, who ralied late to edge the weakening Honey Ride.
Simon Callaghan trains the winning daughter of Old Fashioned who was bred in Kentucky by Springland Farm and Fox Hill Farm out of the Citidancer mare Miss Puzzle. The dark bay filly was sold for $340,000 as a 2-year-old in training last April by the Ocala Breeders' Sale Co.
Fashion Plate, who paid $6.20 as the 2-1 second choice in the field of seven sophomore fillies, has won three races in a row as she heads into the May 2 Longines Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs.
"Yeah, we obviously have to consider that now," Callaghan said of the Kentucky Oaks after Fashion Plate's impressive win. Tags