Golden Gate Fields: Hollendorfer sending Lady of Fifty on the road

Vassar Photography

Lady of Fifty cruises home in the California Oaks to complete a sweep of Golden Gate's three-race series for her division.

Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer has saddled three Kentucky Oaks winners, Lite Light, Pike Place Dancer and his Eclipse Award winner Blind Luck. He knows about 3-year-old fillies.

On Saturday, the Hollendorfer-trained Lady of Fifty completed a sweep of Golden Gate Fields’s series of stakes for fillies born in 2009 by taking the 1 1/16-mile California Oaks in wire-to-wire style. Earlier, Lady of Fifty had won the six-furlong Golden Gate Debutante and the one-mile Corte Madera.

Hollendorfer said there aren’t any suitable races left for Lady of Fifty at Golden Gate.

“Everybody with a good 3-year-old is thinking about bigger races later on, and I’m thinking about them too,” Hollendorfer said. “There is nothing left for her here, so she’ll have to go someplace else, but she has plenty of options.”

Hollendorfer hasn’t decided what might be next for Lady of Fifty, an After Market filly he bought for $40,000 at the Keeneland September yearling sale for himself and longtime friend and partner George Todaro.

Jockey Russell Baze, who rode her for the first time on Saturday since her debut, raved after the Oaks about the filly’s “long, big, beautiful stride.”

Baze said, “You do have to get after her a little bit to keep her mind on business. She’s still learning. She hasn’t run her best race yet.”

The Hollendorfer-trained Sweet Nothings was second in the Oaks, as she was in the Corte Madera, and Hollendorfer was pleased with her effort as well.

Dodging a bullet

The decision by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to use Richmond as the site of its second campus heartened Golden Gate’s horsemen as well as Morris, the general manager. The laboratory had been considering several sites for its campus, including Golden Gate Fields. Had the laboratory decided to build on the Golden Gate site, it almost certainly would have meant the end of racing here.

“We think that’s great news,” Morris said. “I was running Golden Gate Fields as a racetrack.”

◗ Jockey Pedro Flores, who sustained a fractured right collarbone in a spill on Sunday, will be sidelined from six to eight weeks.

◗ Elizabeth Ellis, daughter of trainer Ron Ellis, has been hired to interview trainers and jockeys in the paddock on the weekends.