Anisette stands out in Yellow Ribbon Handicap
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Anisette is stabled at Santa Anita most of the year, but when California’s top female turf runner starts at Del Mar on Saturday, it is a virtual homecoming.
“She loves it down here, as she showed last year,” trainer Leonard Powell said Sunday after Anisette had drilled an easy half-mile for the Grade 2 Yellow Ribbon Handicap. After the workout, Powell pronounced her “ready to go.”
She usually is.
First or second in her last nine starts, Anisette emerged last summer at Del Mar as California’s top 3-year-old turf filly by winning the Grade 2 San Clemente Stakes and Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks. Whether she has gotten faster since is debatable; she is running the same figures at age 4 as she was at 3. But Anisette runs as fast as she needs to, and her list of achievements continues to grow.
After winning two Grade 1s during the Santa Anita season, including the Gamely against older, Anisette returns to Del Mar on Saturday as the 126-pound topweight in the Yellow Ribbon, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for fillies and mares. Few knew Anisette a year ago, everyone knows her this year, and many will be betting her Saturday.
Only six entered the $200,000 Yellow Ribbon, making it the smallest Yellow Ribbon field since the race moved in 2016 from late in the meet to early in the meet. Anisette’s rivals include three trained by Phil D’Amato – graded winners Bellabel and Uncorked, and listed stakes winner Lucky Girl. Midwest shipper Fuente Ovejuna and Ever Smart also are entered.
The Yellow Ribbon is the first of two graded turf stakes for fillies and mares at the Del Mar meet. The Grade 2 John C. Mabee on Sept. 7 is next for Grade 1 winner Didia and possibly Beach Bomb, who earned a Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf berth taking a Win and You’re In race in South Africa. Beach Bomb will be nominated to the Mabee, said her new trainer, Graham Motion.
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For now, Anisette carries top weight against a modest field that does not include the 122-pound co-second highweights. Ruby Nell upset Anisette last fall and was nominated to the Yellow Ribbon, but she will miss the race due to a throat issue. East Coast-based Mission of Joy also was nominated to the Yellow Ribbon, but is expected to run Sunday in the Grade 2 Beverly D. at Colonial Downs.
Anisette’s light work pattern includes three successive half-mile works, which is standard.
“We’ve never worked her really hard,” Powell said. “She’s coming in in very good form. She’s showing all the right signs.”
Anisette’s rider is Umberto Rispoli. Her main rivals are D’Amato-trained Uncorked and Bellabel, who both finished off the board last out.
Uncorked, previously based on the East Coast, scored an impressive Grade 3 win at Santa Anita in April, her first start since moving to the D’Amato stable. The Royal Heroine victory set her up as a contender in the Gamely, but she never had a chance and finished eighth.
“It was a combination of running against really good company, and Frankie [Dettori] will be the first to tell you he kind of got stuck and never got comfortable to make a clear run,” D’Amato said. “If she doesn’t get a perfect trip against that kind, it’s just going to be too tough for her.”
Uncorked has worked well since under jockey Antonio Fresu, but the Yellow Ribbon pace scenario may benefit D’Amato-trained Bellabel, who won the San Clemente at Del Mar two years ago and wired the Grade 3 Megahertz in February at Santa Anita. She finished seventh in her most recent start in late April.
“She rattled off lightning-fast fractions and didn’t relax, that was her demise,” D’Amato said. “I think she likes Del Mar a lot more than Santa Anita. I really loved her last drill.”
Kazushi Kimura has worked Bellabel and will ride her. She could make an easy lead, though only one of the first seven turf races this summer at 1 1/16 miles was won by the pacesetter.
D’Amato’s third entrant, Lucky Girl, would have run in the restricted Osunitas Handicap on July 21, but was ineligible after earning $55,200 winning a minor stakes last fall at Santa Anita. The Osunitas eligibility cutoff is $50,000. Lucky Girl is probably outclassed in the Yellow Ribbon, but she will be rolling late under Hector Berrios.
The Yellow Ribbon is race 8 on a card that includes the Grade 3 Sorrento Stakes for 2-year-old fillies. The Sorrento is race 5.
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