Conquest Farenheit stretches out in Rainbow Stakes

ARCADIA, Calif. – The $75,000 Rainbow Stakes for 3-year-olds on turf Saturday at Santa Anita is a welcomed home game for two-time stakes winner Conquest Farenheit, who was foiled against better company in a Grade 2 race at Churchill Downs last out.

Conquest Farenheit finished a creditable fourth in the $300,000 American Turf, a race that produced one graded-stakes winner and four others who subsequently placed in stakes. He meets no such rivals on Saturday. The challenge for Conquest Farenheit is distance.

Eleven entered the nine-furlong Rainbow. Conquest Farenheit and Grecian Fire are the only stakes winners, though neither is proven beyond one mile. It might not matter for Conquest Farenheit, the most accomplished in the field and the likely pacesetter.

Peter Miller trains Conquest Farenheit for Rockingham Ranch and Chad Littlefield; the colt is reunited Saturday with Norberto Arroyo, who rode him in two turf-stakes victories in February and March – a sprint and a fast-paced, front-running route victory in the Pasadena Stakes.

Conquest Farenheit’s main weapon is speed; a return to firm ground and easier company should lead to a front-running victory Saturday. When he finished fourth at Churchill Downs, Conquest Farenheit raced over “good” turf that jockeys described as being soft.

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Purchased for $735,000 at a dispersal sale last fall, Conquest Farenheit has won three races and $171,955 from six starts. He will be racing over a Santa Anita turf course on which he is 2 for 2 at shorter distances. The course has played fair. Four of the 13 races at 1 1/8 miles were won by a horse on the lead after the opening half-mile.

Grecian Fire added blinkers last out and won a $75,000 stakes at Golden Gate Fields; the runner-up returned to finish fifth at 35-1 in a California-bred stakes.

Sharp Samurai could keep the favorite honest on the lead. A front-runner/presser, he finished fourth as the favorite last out in a one-mile turf stakes. In his previous start, Sharp Samurai won a turf allowance at 1 1/8 miles after setting the pace.

Bird Is the World and Fashion Business both are closers who had trouble in recent starts. With clean trips, they figure as contenders. Others in the Rainbow include Monster Man, Kings River King, Most Determined, Comma Sister, Perfect Come Back, and Rainbow Squall.

The Rainbow Stakes is race 8 on an 11-race card; first post is noon Pacific.

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