Early stumble can't stop Donna Veloce in Santa Ysabel

ARCADIA, Calif. – There’s an old saying around the racetrack that a horse could give their rivals a head start and still win. Donna Veloce put that to the test Sunday at Santa Anita.

First stride out of the gate, Donna Veloce – heavily favored in the Grade 3, $100,500 Santa Ysabel Stakes – stumbled.

“My heart skipped a beat,” said her co-owner, Kaleem Shah.

Donna Veloce got back under her feet, was patiently handled by jockey Flavien Prat, and ended up routing her five overmatched rivals anyway, cruising home 4 1/4 lengths best in a promising start to her 3-year-old campaign.

Donna Veloce ($2.60) showed high talent at age 2, finishing second by a just a neck to champion British Idiom in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies in only her second start following a debut win sprinting. She subsequently was second again to multiple Grade 1 winner Bast in the Starlet at Los Alamitos.

Given a freshening in advance of her first major 2020 target, the Kentucky Oaks for 3-year-old fillies on May 1, Callaghan was using the Santa Ysabel as a means to an end. The stumble might have provided temporary angst, but everything else worked out ideally. Donna Veloce earned 50 points on the system used by Churchill Downs to determine the field for the Kentucky Oaks. She’s in.

“I thought it was a perfect race,” Callaghan said. “I didn’t want a super hard race.”

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Mission accomplished. Donna Veloce sat fourth in the six-horse field as the runners went around the first turn of the 1 1/16-mile race. By the far turn, Donna Veloce had been taken to the three path for clear room by Prat. She bounded clear of Speech in upper stretch and drew away.

Speech was easily second, 3 1/4 lengths in front of third-place Storie Blue. Paige Anne, Gidgetta, and Tiz Fake News completed the finish, in that order. Gingham was withdrawn at scratch time.

Donna Veloce covered 1 1/16 miles on the fast main track in 1:45.43. The race was fast early – 22.79 seconds for the opening quarter, 46.80 for the half – and slow late, but Callaghan said Donna Veloce was far from cranked up for this. She had just five published works, starting Feb. 1.

“I was slightly nervous I’d done enough,” Callaghan said about her training. “It was the bare minimum for this.”

Donna Veloce, by Uncle Mo, now owns two wins and two seconds in four starts. Shah owns her in partnership with the Coolmore team of Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor, and Derrick Smith.

Callaghan has won the Santa Anita Oaks twice previously, including last year in concert with Shah with Bellafina. Callaghan and Shah both said they’d need to speak to the Coolmore partners, but said the Santa Anita Oaks on April 4 likely would be next for Donna Veloce. The Santa Anita Oaks has been downgraded to Grade 2 this year, so the other option for a final Kentucky Oaks prep would be the Ashland, which remains at Grade 1, at Keeneland.

“I’m pretty sure we’ll stay here,” Callaghan said.