Acting Out to make stakes debut in Las Cienegas

Acting Out, winner of consecutive allowance races at Del Mar and Los Alamitos in November and earlier this month, is scheduled to have her stakes debut in the Grade 3 Las Cienegas Stakes at six furlongs on turf Jan. 9 at Santa Anita.

A 3-year-old filly, Acting Out could give trainer Art Sherman his first stakes win since California Chrome’s victory in the Los Alamitos Winter Challenge in December 2016. California Chrome won his second Horse of the Year title in 2016.

Acting Out has developed rapidly in recent months for Sherman, 83.

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“She’s on the improve,” Sherman said Friday. “We’ve got to take a shot. I’m out of conditions anyway.”

Co-owned by Sherman Racing, Zvi Akin, and Robert Harkins, Acting Out has won 3 of 5 starts, with all the victories at five or 5 1/2 furlongs. Acting Out won an allowance race at five furlongs on turf Nov. 7 at Del Mar and an allowance race at 5 1/2 furlongs on dirt Dec. 11 at Los Alamitos, drawing away by five lengths.

The $100,000 Las Cienegas Stakes will start in a newly installed backstretch turf chute that will be used for the first time on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita, the beginning of the track’s winter-spring meeting. Santa Anita is no longer running sprints starting on the hillside turf course and will only use that section of the turf course for the start of longer turf races.

With the new backstretch turf chute, sprints will be run at six and 6 1/2 furlongs. Horses will start in the chute, cross the dirt course, and rejoin the oval portion of the turf course with approximately 5 1/2 furlongs remaining in a race.