Camilla Urso nominees still weighing options

Nominating horses to stakes races is part of the price of doing business when you have a talented runner. The connections of 10 older fillies and mares spent $50 each to nominate them for Saturday’s $50,000 Camilla Urso at Golden Gate Fields. They also spent $100 each to nominate them for Sunday’s Grade 3 Las Flores at Santa Anita.

Living The Life, who won the Camilla Urso last year, was nominated to this year’s edition, but trainer Gary Mandella said she will run Saturday in the Grade 1, $500,000 Santa Margarita at Santa Anita.

Trainer O.J. Jauregui nominated the multiple stakes winner Amaranth to the Camilla Urso and Las Flores. Jerry Hollendorfer is keeping both options open for Dr. Fager’s Gal and Minks Aprise and nominated Never Ends for the Camilla Urso.

Jauregui said he and Amaranth’s owner, Highland Yard LLC, likely would decide on the 5-year-old mare’s 2016 debut Tuesday. She’s had seven works, including three bullet drills, in preparation for her return.

“She always trains really well,” Jauregui said. “She’s about 80 to 90 percent fit, but sometimes they’re in a lot better shape than you think. One more work would have her more tight for us.”

Jauregui pointed out that Amaranth runs well fresh. Her first start in 2015 was a victory in the Desert Stormer at Santa Anita following a 5 1/2-month layoff.

While the Camilla Urso should be a much softer race than the Las Flores, Amaranth has won two stakes on dirt at Santa Anita, and a graded stakes victory or placing would add to her value.

Also nominated was Porteous, a recent $25,000 claim for Bran Jam Stable by trainer Andy Mathis. The 5-year-old mare also was entered in a $40,000 claimer Friday, though Mathis wasn’t sure which race he’d choose.

“If you claim a horse and enter and win a stakes race, it’s pretty good,” he said, “but going for $40,000 [claiming price] is a jump up. Sometimes you nominate for ‘just in case,’ but it was a short field for [$40,000]. If you win for $40,000, the only way to make more in the stakes is to win.”

With four straight Beyer Speed Figures in the 80s, Porteous is a good fit in the claimer, Mathis said.

Set to run in the Camilla Urso is Fast and Foxy, who will be taking a third crack at the race for owner and breeder Joe Daehling.

Jockeys get first wins

In the past month, two riders recorded their first career victories and a third got his first local win.

David Martin, who won three races at Portland Meadows before coming to Golden Gate Fields, got his first local win aboard Monsajem Accrete in the final race Feb. 13. The following Friday, Kevin Orozco scored his first win, guiding the maiden Elle Wood Too to a front-running victory in a maiden race in his fourth ride. And last Sunday, Shawn Spikes celebrated his 20th birthday two days early when Game Seeker scored a one-length win in a maiden claimer. It was the 19th mount for Spikes, a San Francisco native whose racing debut came last summer at Ferndale.

Orozco, 19, has been around horses all his life, having grown up on a ranch in Southern California. His grandparents worked on the backside for 40 years, and Orozco remembers going to Del Mar with them.

“I fell in love with the sport,” he said.

Orozco started getting on horses as a youngster but said his mother wouldn’t let him get on a racehorse until he was 14. He began working horses at Galway Downs in Southern California before coming to Northern California, where he began working horses for Sherrie Monroe and was introduced to agent John Buc.

“He really is a good guy,” said Monroe. “He works hard and tries to do what he’s told. He’s improving and becoming more confident.”

Through Sunday, Orozco had two wins from 14 mounts.

“I’ve had some pretty good races and some not so good,” he said. “Every race, you learn something different. You have to pick those things out. I tell the other jockeys if I do something wrong to tell me.”

Spikes has been coming to the track since he was 3 with his grandparents, mother, and an aunt.

“It was fascinating to me,” said Spikes. “The more I went, the more I wanted to ride.”

When he turned 15, he began working at a ranch for trainers Tirso Ribera and Frank Lucarelli and learned about jumping horses.

“It’s an amazing feeling to have accomplished something like this,” Spikes said of his first win.

◗ Beginning Thursday, Golden Gate Fields will be broadcasting its races in high definition. The track is installing three new cameras – on the starting gate, in the paddock, and one capturing the larger racing scene – along with the high-definition graphics package. Five hundred HD televisions have been installed on Turf Club tables and in the Top of the Stretch betting carrels throughout the facility.