Annie's Candy takes advantage of change in script and wins Oak Tree Sprint

It was not surprising there was a wire-to-wire winner in Wednesday’s $53,225 Oak Tree Sprint at the Oak Tree at Pleasanton meet.

The surprise was that it was Annie’s Candy dominating on the lead, defeating stablemate Tribal Storm by two lengths in 1:10.99 in the six-furlong race. Taima the Hawk was third and Run Away fourth in the field of five 3-year-olds and up. Annie's Candy paid $16.20 to win.

Odds-on favorite and expected pacesetter My Friend Emma stumbled leaving the gate and unseated rider Ricardo Gonzalez to change the race dynamics. Neither horse nor rider were seriously injured.

“It’s terrible what happened,” said winning trainer Ari Herbertson. “I’m happy Emma’s okay, and, more importantly, I’m happy that Ricky’s okay.

“I’m happy we won today. I’d like to think we’d have won anyway.”

Herbertson claimed Annie’s Candy for his father, Scott, for $25,000 on May 28 at Golden Gate Fields. Annie’s Candy chased My Friend Emma and finished second to her in the Albany Stakes on June 9.

Herbertson sent Annie's Candy, a 5-year-old Twirling Candy gelding, to Los Alamitos to train with his assistant Taylor Cambra while looking ahead to running him at Del Mar.

“The only reason we ran here was that he was working so well,” said Herbertson, noting that a 46.40 half-mile drill at Los Al on June 24 "was one of the most impressive moves I’ve seen.”

With a short field, Herbertson decided to run Annie's Candy at Pleasanton.

He told jockey Alejandro Gomez to try to sit closer to My Friend Emma than Annie’s Candy had in the Albany.

“You can’t give him that big a head start,” said Herbertson.

With My Friend Emma out of the race, Annie’s Candy had an open lead all the way over Tribal Storm, who ran second all the way.

The victory, worth $31,000, was the sixth in 26 starts for Annie’s Candy, who has now earned $291,641.