Ag Bullet ends 11-month layoff with Wishing Well triumph

ARCADIA, Calif. - The $102,500 Wishing Well Stakes at Santa Anita on Sunday marked a successful comeback for the winning filly Ag Bullet, who had not raced in 11 months, and for trainer Richard Baltas, who returned from a one-year suspension in December.

Ag Bullet ($9.80) stalked pacesetter Phenom, took the lead when the field crossed from the hillside turf course onto the main oval, and gradually pulled clear to win by 1 1/4 lengths over an unlucky Gracelund Gray, the 2-1 favorite in a field of 10 fillies and mares.

Ag Bullet ran about 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:12.85 and earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 88.

Gracelund Gray, who raced in traffic in upper stretch, finished a head in front of 9-1 Miss Lizzy.

Lunar Impact finished fourth, followed by Ice Dancing, School Dance, One Silk Stocking, Carmen Miranda, Phenom and Violent Runner. Warrens Candy Girl was scratched on Sunday morning.

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Ag Bullet, who is owned by Calvin Nguyen and Joey Tran, had her first start on Sunday since she finished fifth in the Bourbonette Oaks at Turfway Park last March when trained by George Papaprodromou.

For Baltas, the Wishing Well was his first stakes win since April 2022.

In December 2022, Baltas was suspended 12 months and fined $10,000 by a panel of three California stewards for violations related to the administration of race-day supplements at Santa Anita in April and May of that year.

Backstretch surveillance cameras in the Santa Anita stable area caught one of Baltas’s employees administering an herbal supplement to one of the stable’s runners hours before the horse was scheduled to start.

California trainers are under severe restrictions regarding medications and supplements that can be administered within 48 and 24 hours of a race. A review of video surveillance of Baltas’s stable in April and May of 2022 led to a racing board complaint alleging that unpermitted substances were administered in more than 20 instances.

Baltas, 62, returned from suspension last December. Ag Bullet was his second winner of the current winter-spring meeting.

“I’m very grateful,” Baltas said.

“It feels good to be back and win a stakes.”

Ag Bullet, a 4-year-old by Twirling Candy, has won 3 of 5 starts and earned $170,300. She won a maiden race and the Lady of Shamrock Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at a mile on turf in consecutive starts in the early months of 2023.

After the loss in the Bourbonette, Ag Bullet was briefly in training before she was given a rest. Ag Bullet did not resume workouts until mid-November of last year.

“She’s a quality mare,” Baltas said. “It shows (what happens when) you give a horse a break and do what a horse needs.

“I thought I had her fit enough, the way she galloped out after her last three or four works.”

The Wishing Well Stakes was restricted to fillies and mares who had not won a graded stakes since August 1.

Baltas mentioned the Grade 3 Monrovia Stakes on the hillside turf course on April 6 as a potential early spring goal for Ag Bullet.

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