Californian win would boost Prospect Park's stock

ARCADIA, Calif. – For two years, Prospect Park has carried a lofty reputation, the consequence of a second-place finish in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes and a fourth in the Santa Anita Derby in 2015.

Since then, Prospect Park has been 4-1 or less in all 10 of his starts, including a third in the Grade 2 Del Mar Derby at 3-10 and a win at even-money in an optional claimer on turf at Santa Anita on March 9.

The latter race gives trainer Clifford Sise hope that Prospect Park can win the second stakes of his career in the Grade 2 Californian Stakes at 1 1/8 miles on dirt at Santa Anita on Saturday.

This is certainly the right time to try such a race.

Arrogate, the leading older horse in the nation, is not part of the field for the Californian, having won the $10 million Dubai World Cup in the United Arab Emirates last month. Without Arrogate, the $200,000 Californian lacks a standout, which gives Sise more confidence about the chances for the 5-year-old Prospect Park.

“He’s doing really well,” Sise said on Wednesday. “I don’t think the surface matters. He’s run some good races on the dirt, too.”

Owned by Marty and Pam Wygod, Prospect Park was fourth in the Grade 2 San Pasqual Stakes on a wet-fast track Jan. 1, a race Sise summarily dismissed.

“He didn’t like that,” he said.

Sise said Prospect Park has overcome a pesky illness that arose at inopportune times during his 3-year-old year.

“Two of his races you can throw out completely,” he said. “We were fighting mucus and stuff in the Del Mar Derby and Santa Anita Derby. He wasn’t at the top of his game at all. But now he’s over all that he had when he was younger.”

Prospect Park has won 4 of 17 starts and earned $515,770. He was second in the Grade 2 Los Alamitos Derby on dirt and won the Grade 3 La Jolla Handicap on turf at Del Mar in consecutive starts in the summer of 2015.

Sise said Flavien Prat, the leading rider at the track’s winter-spring meeting, will ride Prospect Park for the first time in the Californian. Kent Desormeaux has ridden Prospect Park in 11 of his last 14 races but is booked to ride Follow Me Crev on Saturday. Follow Me Crev was third in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on March 11.

Other expected runners are Collected, Cupid, Prime Attraction, and Texas Ryano.

The Grade 3 San Juan Capistrano Stakes at about 1 3/4 miles on turf also will be run Saturday and is not expected to have a large field. The historic race, the track’s longest turf stakes, is led by Syntax, the runner-up in the Grade 2 San Luis Rey Stakes at 1 1/2 miles on turf March 25.