ARCADIA, Calif. – Top horses often make it look easy, and The Chosen Vron made it look easy Saturday at Santa Anita. The veteran gelding won his 14th stakes, capturing the $150,000 Don Valpredo California Cup Sprint for the second straight year to launch his 2024 campaign in style. It was not a surprise. The Chosen Vron ($2.10 favorite) entered the six-furlong race having won his last eight starts in Cal-bred stakes. But the 6-year-old gelding still had to go out and do it, and trainer Eric Kruljac acknowledged some mild nervousness before the race. “When you’re overwhelmingly supposed to do something, there’s pressure,” Kruljac said. “I wondered if I under-trained him again. He trains himself anyway.” The Chosen Vron runs accordingly. Hector Berrios, his regular rider and his regular workout rider, was aboard for the 2 1/4-length victory over pacesetter Brickyard Ride, himself a two-time Cal Cup Sprint winner. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. Making his first start in two months, The Chosen Vron and Berrios tucked third on the rail. Berrios sat patiently while Brickyard Ride coasted through easy fractions of 22.41 and 45.32. Passing the quarter pole, it was just about time for Berrios to ask The Chosen Vron to go. “I wait, I wait, I wait,” Berrios said. “In the stretch I let him move outside, and he responded, no problem.” The Chosen Vron ran past Brickyard Ride in the final furlong to win in 1:09.06 with something left in the tank. Following runner-up Brickyard Ride, it was 2 1/4 lengths back to longshot third-place finisher Geezer. Principe Carlo and Moose Mitchell completed the order of finish in the five-runner field. Kruljac deferred credit. “It’s easy when you have a horse like that, just gotta not get too greedy,” he said. The 2024 campaign for The Chosen Vron could be a mirror of 2023, when he won six of seven starts including the Grade 1 Bing Crosby at Del Mar. The Chosen Vron’s next start is expected to be Feb. 19 in the $100,000 Tiznow Stakes, a mile dirt race for Cal-breds that he won last year. Long term? “We would love to defend our Bing Crosby,” Kruljac said. “From there, who knows?” The only loss last year by The Chosen Vron was his fifth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Kruljac still maintains he under-trained him for that race and would appreciate another shot at it. Saturday in the Cal Cup, The Chosen Vron was dead fit and winning for the 15th time in 20 starts. The son of Vronsky earned $90,000 to lift his career total to $1,239,678. Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint Horse-for-course Rose Maddox won her second stakes on the Santa Anita hillside course Saturday, taking the $150,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint in the race prior to the Cal Cup Sprint. Flavien Prat rode Rose Maddox ($4.40 favorite) to a nose win over Chancery Way. It was another nose back to third-place Stay and Scam in the 6 1/2-furlong turf sprint. The stakes win by Rose Maddox came two starts after she won the $100,000 California Distaff Handicap on the hillside course in October. Steve Miyadi trains Rose Maddox for owner-breeder Nick Alexander. A 5-year-old mare by Grazen, Rose Maddox saved ground midpack, cut the corner when pacesetter Chancery Way drifted out into the stretch, and won in 1:13.45. The win by Rose Maddox was her seventh from 20 starts; she finished in the exacta 15 times. Rose Maddox, by Grazen, has earned $515,782. Alexander was winning the stakes for the third time. His 2019 winner S Y Sky and 2017 winner Enola Gray also were sired by Grazen. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.