Big Switch, Professors' Pride look to bounce back down the hill
ARCADIA, Calif. – It is fitting the favorites in the featured seventh race Friday at Santa Anita enter with uncertain form, considering they will race over a turf course at the center of recent uncertainty.
Five races Friday are on grass, and officials expect the races will unfold without incident. That did not happen Sunday, when horses slipped excessively on turf. Three jockeys refused to ride the final race; two horses were late scratches.
The turf course was aerated deeper than normal and mowed shorter prior to the Monday card. Racing secretary Chris Merz said input from riders suggested less slippage.
“Since it’s been cold, moisture from underneath was getting trapped,” Merz said. He added the deeper aeration and mowing gives the course “a chance to dry out.”
The turf rails are at the outermost 30-foot setting Friday on a card with two turf routes, two turf sprints at six furlongs, and a downhill entry-level allowance for 3-year-old fillies. The hillside sprint is the featured seventh in which the principals look dubious on paper. However, Big Switch, Professors’ Pride, and Delmona probably are better than they seem.
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The eighth and final race marks the debut of highly regarded 3-year-old Devil Moon. His main rival in the maiden turf sprint is Mo Gold, runner-up last out in a highly rated race.
In the seventh, California-bred stakes winners Big Switch and Professors’ Pride try to bounce back from subpar performances. Both had excuses. Big Switch, fourth in the Grade 2 Santa Ynez, spiked a fever out of the race. She recovered from the minor illness, is bred for grass, and fast enough if she repeats her California-bred stakes win two back on dirt.
Professors’ Pride blew her cool in the California Cup Oaks last out. She sped to the lead while unrelaxed and wilted. The high-strung filly scratched Feb. 11 from a California-bred turf allowance when it was determined she was ineligible having won a California-bred stakes race.
Though both California-breds won stakes, the “class” of the allowance might be Delmona. She was Group 3-placed last year in England, and finished only a neck behind Twilight Gleaming in a July allowance at Ascot. Twilight Gleaming won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint her next start.
Delmona was purchased for a reported $245,000 at auction last fall and will make her U.S. debut for Red Barons Barn and Rancho Temescal. The challenge for Delmona is to run better on turf than she has trained on dirt. She has been repeatedly outworked by a stablemate. Trainer Jeff Mullins is hopeful a surface switch is what Delmona needs.
“If you look her race record, she’s a way better filly than she’s been showing in the morning,” Mullins said. “At this point, I’m hopefully just blaming it on the dirt. Maybe her works don’t show the best of her.”
Meanwhile, expectations are high for Devil Moon in the eighth race. Richard Mandella trains the full brother to Grade 1 winner Magnum Moon. Devil Moon is expected to fire first time out.
“He trains like a good horse,” Mandella said.