Beautiful Gift gives Baffert ninth stakes win of season

ARCADIA, Calif. - Beautiful Gift won Sunday’s Grade 3 Santa Ysabel Stakes with a late rally to take the lead in the final strides. The win gave trainer Bob Baffert a meet-leading ninth stakes win of the Santa Anita winter-spring season.

Beautiful Gift ($8) trailed leader Moraz by three lengths with a furlong remaining, and by about two lengths with a sixteenth of a mile to go before prevailing by a head.

Ridden by John Velazquez, Beautiful Gift ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:44.83 and earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 87.

Moraz, ridden by Umberto Rispoli, appeared to have the race won after inheriting the lead from pacesetter Kalypso on the turn. Beautiful Gift steadily gained on Moraz. Rispoli knew Beautiful Gift was closing, having looked back to scout the competition in the final yards.

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“She finished very well,” Velazquez said of Beautiful Gift. “It took her a sixteenth of a mile to get her feet going. At the wire, I wasn’t sure she got it.”

Moraz (2-1) finished 2 3/4 lengths in front of 7-10 favorite Kalypso. Heels Up tailed off and finished last in a field of four. A Real Hero was withdrawn Sunday morning.

Kalypso was favored on the basis of a win in the Grade 2 Santa Ynez Stakes at seven furlongs on Jan. 3 and a second in the Grade 3 Las Virgenes Stakes at a mile on Feb. 6.

The $98,000 Santa Ysabel was the stakes debut and first start of 2021 for Beautiful Gift, a Medaglia d’Oro filly owned by Baoma Corp. Beautiful Gift won her second start in a maiden special weight race for 2-year-old fillies at a mile here last October and had not raced since.

Baffert has won nine stakes at the meeting, one more than Phil D’Amato. The season began on Dec. 26 and continues through June 20.