Faithfully, Show Stealer skip Beholder Mile, opt for Santa Lucia
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ARCADIA, Calif. – The $75,000 Santa Lucia Stakes at Santa Anita on Sunday has become the consolation for Saturday’s Grade 1 Beholder Mile.
Faithfully and Show Stealer were entered in the $400,000 Beholder Mile for fillies and mares but will run Sunday in the Santa Lucia, according to trainers Bob Baffert and Art Sherman. The Santa Lucia is run at 1 1/16 miles for fillies and mares who have not won a stakes worth $25,000 or more to the winner since Sept. 15.
Show Stealer has finished behind Beholder Mile entrant Vale Dori in four consecutive graded stakes since early December. On March 18, the Baffert-trained Vale Dori won the Grade 1 Santa Margarita Invitational, while Show Stealer finished last in the field of eight.
The loss was a disappointment for owner George Krikorian and Sherman, who watched Show Stealer finish second to Vale Dori in two Grade 2 races earlier this year: the La Canada Stakes in January and the Santa Maria Stakes in February.
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An 11-week break since the Santa Margarita has helped Show Stealer, Sherman said.
“I think she’s doing a lot better now,” Sherman said. “She’s a funny filly to train. She needs to be fresh. I thought she was laying too close last time, and she doesn’t like that.
“She was put into the race too early. She likes to make one run.”
Gary Stevens, who rode the 5-year-old Show Stealer to a fourth-place finish behind Vale Dori in the Grade 2 Bayakoa Stakes at Del Mar last December, has the mount Sunday.
A big race by Show Stealer on Sunday may not lead to an encounter with Vale Dori, Stellar Wind, or Finest City, the principal entrants in the Beholder Mile.
“You can pick your spots,” Sherman said. “There are other races all over the country. I’ll let it come to that when it happens.”
The Santa Lucia drew a field of five and will be the stakes debut for Faithfully.
Other runners are Coppa, who won the Grade 3 Victory Ride Stakes at Belmont Park last July, and two fillies trained by Jerry Hollendorfer: Plastered and Street Surrender.
The Santa Lucia will be Coppa’s first start around two turns. She was last of 10 in the Mizdirection Stakes on the hillside turf course April 22.
Plastered was claimed for $40,000 last November and won an optional claimer on March 31 in her last start. She will be ridden by the red-hot apprentice jockey Evin Roman, who won three races Thursday.
Street Surrender was second in the Golden Poppy Stakes on turf at Golden Gate Fields on May 13 in her stakes debut.
