Eda ready to stretch out after Desi Arnaz win
DEL MAR, Calif. – Eda has yet to try two turns, but her sprint speed carried her to her third victory in five starts, and her second straight stakes win, when winning the $100,000 Desi Arnaz Stakes for 2-year-old fillies on Saturday at Del Mar, thus earning her the opportunity to stretch out next month.
Her trainer, Bob Baffert, said Eda would make her next start in the Grade 1 Starlet at Los Alamitos on Dec. 4.
“You don’t know until they do it,” Baffert said in the winner’s circle. “I like the way she did it. She relaxed and kicked away clear.”
Eda ($2.40), heavily favored against four rivals, pressed the pace outside stablemate Under the Stars through the opening half-mile, turned back a bid from Tonito’s nearing the top of the lane, then drew away for an emphatic 4 1/4-length victory under Flavien Prat.
“Prat, he was impressed for the first time today,” Baffert said. “Today Prat thought the Starlet might not be too bad an idea.”
Eda completed 6 1/2 furlongs on the fast main track in 1:15.53, with a strong final five-sixteenths in 30.15 seconds.
Tonito’s out-finished Under the Stars by three-quarters of a length for second. Lady T was a distant fourth after an adventurous start, and Endless Thirst trailed.
Lady T, who broke from the post 1, ducked in shortly after the start, then ducked back out when she neared the inner rail.
“She sees everything,” said her rider, Victor Espinoza. “She got close to the rail. I didn’t want to hit the rail. When she saw the white, she went the other way.”
Eda, by Munnings, has now won three times in five starts. She was placed first via disqualification in her debut at Santa Anita in June, then was second in a spirited edition of the Grade 2 Sorrento this summer at Del Mar before a hot pace carved her up in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante, in which she finished fifth.
She emerged from that race to win the Anoakia at Santa Anita on Oct. 24, with Prat riding her for the first time.
Eda earned $60,000 on Saturday, and now has career earnings of $190,000 for Susan and Charles Chu’s Baoma Corporation. She was purchased earlier this year at Ocala for $550,000.