Anuket back quick after dazzling comeback

ARCADIA, Calif. – Plenty of future stars will compete at Santa Anita the next week, including a pair of 3-year-old fillies with untold potential racing six furlongs Friday.

The significance of the allowance sprint hardly compares to the Breeders’ Cup 2-year-old races next Friday, but it’s a big race anyway for lightly raced Anuket and Hard Not to Love.

Anuket, who was off eight months after tearing off a chunk of a foot, wheels back 19 days after a dazzling comeback. Trainer Bob Baffert hopes the second-level allowance leads to the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita.

Hard Not to Love, a one-eyed filly trained by John Shirreffs, runs Friday for the first time in nearly six months. Why the layoff? It was mental. Shirreffs points to his head. “Upstairs,” he said. “The break was a good time for her to have a chance to let down and come back. The second time around, horses are a little bit better.”

Anuket and Hard Not to Love both have won 2 of 3 starts and are top betting choices despite being the least accomplished in the field of five. The others are Show It N Moe It, a two-time California-bred stakes winner who has won six races and $488,407; stakes-placed Madame Vestal, who has finished one-two in all five starts; and stakes winner Love a Honeybadger, who is 5 for 12.

Anuket romped in her Dec. 30 debut, but her next start was a debacle. Anuket went to her nose at the start, unseated her jockey, and sustained a severe foot injury.

“She tore a quarter of her foot off; it was gone,” Baffert said. “We knew she’d make it back, but it would take six months.”

It took eight months, and the wait was worth it. Racing 6 1/2 furlongs, Anuket broke like a shot, set blazing fractions (21.49 seconds and 44.29) and won by more than seven lengths with a 96 Beyer Speed Figure.

“I knew she was going to run well. I didn’t know she was going to do that,” Baffert said. “She ran fast, a little too fast.”

Is the 19-day turnaround a concern?

“It’s always a concern to come back that quick, there’s really (no races) for her,” Baffert said. “I’ll get two starts in her, and then the La Brea.”

Apprentice J.C. Diaz rides Anuket, a daughter of Pioneerof the Nile expected to set the pace.

Hard Not to Love, who is missing her left eye, is expected to rate.

“I hope she kind of relaxes and gets to the outside and makes a little bit of a run,” Shirreffs said. He added, rhetorically, “Do you want her to be a sprinter, or a router?”

Sired by Hard Spun, Hard Not to Love is a sibling to Queen’s Plate winner Wonder Gadot. Hard Not to Love posted her last three workouts under her new rider Mike Smith.