Dabster gains second stakes win with Los Alamitos Special

CYPRESS, Calif. - Dabster became a multiple stakes winner when he won Sunday’s $100,690 Los Alamitos Special, the top race of the current three-week meeting for older horses.

Similar to his first career stakes win in the $75,000 Harry Brubaker Stakes at a mile at Del Mar on Aug. 22, Dabster picked a fight with his rivals and prevailed by two lengths under jockey Joe Talamo in the 1 1/4-mile race.

“He’s a real cool horse,” Talamo said. “He’s very gutty and he loves to fight. It’s fun to ride a horse like that.”

Talamo was aboard for the Brubaker when Dabster led throughout. In the Los Alamitos Special, Dabster ($5.20) stalked pacesetter Little Scotty to the turn before reaching the front in the stretch.

“I let him take a breather and he did all the work down the lane,” Talamo said.

Divisor, a 10-1 outsider making his stakes debut, was within a head of Dabster with a quarter-mile remaining, but could not keep pace.

Divisor held second, finishing 1 1/2 lengths in front of 2-1 Colonist, who was second by a neck in the Grade 3 American Stakes on turf at Santa Anita in April.

Ya Gotta Wanna finished fourth, followed by Twentytwentyvision, Engram, and Little Scotty.

Dabster was timed in 2:00.45, the best time of two races at the distance since the track was expanded in early 2014.

The Los Alamitos Special was restricted to horses who had not won a stakes worth $50,000 or more to the winner at a mile or over. Dabster earned $47,640 in the Brubaker.

Dabster races for Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum and trainer Bob Baffert. Purchased for $1 million at a 2-year-olds in training sale in 2016, Dabster has won 5 of 9 starts and earned $252,425.