Fashionably Fast missing from California Cup Sprint lineup

ARCADIA, Calif. – Fashionably Fast, whose half-dozen stakes victories include the 2020 California Cup Sprint, was conspicuously absent from the nominations for this year’s California Cup Sprint on Saturday at Santa Anita. But the 7-year-old gelding is not done yet.

Fashionably Fast finished sixth Nov. 21 in a stakes race at Del Mar, after which trainer Dean Pederson initially thought he needed a vacation.

“He was a little knocked out. I was going to turn him out,” he said. “But he’s 7 years old, and they get a little smarter.”

Pederson kept Fashionably Fast at the track, walked him for nearly two weeks, and the gelding came back around. He resumed works in December at Santa Anita, including a sharp five-furlong drill Sunday.

“He showed a little bit of that old spark,” Pederson said.

“The way he worked, part of you says, I wish I would have nominated him,” the trainer added. “But I also know that running against a fresh and fit Brickyard Ride” – the likely California Cup Sprint favorite – “to run with that kind, you’ve got to be spot-on.”

Plans?

“A lot of people work from the Breeders’ Cup backwards, I work from Fresno backwards,” Pederson said, referring to the Fresno fair meet in October. Fashionably Fast won the Harris Farms Stakes at Fresno in 2021 and 2019; he finished second in 2018. A nine-time winner of $685,891 from 22 starts, Fashionably Fast is co-owned by breeder John Harris, whose stable name is Harris Farms.