DeVaux pointing Raven Run winner Vahva to La Brea Stakes
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Vahva continued a breakout season for trainer Cherie DeVaux with a gritty, half-length win in the Grade 2 Raven Run last Saturday at Keeneland. Vahva will look to put a bow on this season with one more outing against 3-year-olds in the Grade 1 La Brea at Santa Anita.
“She’s good,” DeVaux said Sunday. “Right now, the goal is the La Brea.”
The Grade 1, $300,000 La Brea Stakes will be run at the same seven-furlong distance as the Raven Run on Dec. 26.
Vahva earned her second straight graded stakes win, and a career-high 100 Beyer Speed Figure, in the Raven Run after taking the Grade 3 Charles Town Oaks on Aug. 25. Vahva will get similar spacing into the race at Santa Anita.
DeVaux has won five graded stakes this year, after winning one each in 2021 and 2022. In addition to her first Grade 1, in the Natalma with She Feels Pretty, and Vahva’s two graded wins, DeVaux won the Grade 3 Molly Pitcher with Shotgun Hottie and the Grade 3 Manila with More Than Looks.
She Feels Pretty (Juvenile Fillies Turf), More Than Looks (Mile), and stakes winner Stage Raider (Dirt Mile) are all Breeders’ Cup candidates.
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Jockey, trainer standings
Luis Saez, who resumed riding on opening day of the Keeneland fall meet following injuries sustained in a spill at Saratoga in late August, is leading the jockey standings entering the meet’s final days with 17 victories to 15 for Tyler Gaffalione. Flavien Prat is third with 13 wins.
Saez and Gaffalione have dominated this spring and summer’s Kentucky meet titles. Gaffalione won titles at the Keeneland spring meet and, in September, the meets at Kentucky Downs and Churchill Downs. Saez was second in the Keeneland spring standings before winning the Churchill spring title.
On the trainer side, Brad Cox has seven wins to Todd Pletcher’s six. Steve Asmussen, Chad Brown, Chris Hartman, and Wesley Ward are deadlocked behind them with five each.
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