06/16/2012 1:36PM

Hollywood Park notes: Illness forces Ellafitz to scratch from Vanity

By Steve Andersen
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INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The Bob Baffert stable suffered a setback when the multiple stakes winner Ellafitz was withdrawn from Saturday’s Grade 1 Vanity Handicap at Betfair Hollywood Park because of an illness.
“She was getting sick,” he said. “She had a throat issue. It’s a bummer.”
It was a bummer for Hollywood Park officials, too.
The Vanity favorite was Include Me Out, the winner of three graded stakes this year. Her main rivals were expected to be Ellafitz and Zazu, a two-time Grade 1 winner last year. Trainer John Sadler said late Thursday that he planned to scratch Zazu because she was “off behind.”
Comma to the Top to try Triple Bend
Comma to the Top, a three-time stakes winner, will have his sprint ability tested in what is expected to be a strong running of the $250,000 Triple Bend Handicap on June 30.
A 4-year-old gelding owned by a partnership, Comma to the Top won an allowance race over five furlongs on turf at Golden Gate Fields on June  9, his first start since a sixth in the Grade 2 Sir Beaufort Stakes at Santa Anita last December.
“He was pretty impressive against a solid bunch of horses up there,” trainer Peter Miller said.
The Grade 1 Triple Bend, which is run over seven furlongs, will be Comma to the Top’s first appearance in a graded stakes for sprinters since a ninth in the Grade 3 Vernon Underwood Stakes here last December. His biggest career win was the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity in 2010.
The Triple Bend is expected to have a strong field. The candidates include Amazombie, the champion sprinter of 2011, who was second in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes on May 5 to eventual Met Mile winner Shackleford.
The Factor, the winner of the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita last December and the Grade 2 San Carlos Stakes in February, but only sixth in the Golden Shaheen sprint in Dubai in March, is training toward the Triple Bend.
Rail Trip, fourth in the Grade 3 Los Angeles Handicap on May 28 in his first start of the year, will start in the Triple Bend, trainer Ron Ellis said.