Fast Anna looking for the lead in Gallant Bob Stakes
There are some very fast 3-year-olds in the $300,000 Gallant Bob Stakes on Saturday at Parx, but Fast Anna exits the best race, the Grade 1 King’s Bishop at Saratoga.
Fast Anna came very close to winning the seven-furlong King’s Bishop. For the third time in as many starts, he opened up daylight leaving the gate. He showed the way until deep stretch, when the hard-charging The Big Beast stormed by to win by a neck.
Fast Anna began his career by leading throughout against maiden and allowance company at Gulfstream Park.
“He’s very fast,” trainer Kathy Ritvo said. “If you watch him when he’s behind the gate, he’s ready to go.”
The Gallant Bob, a six-furlong Grade 3, is carded as the 10th race. It will be followed by the Grade 1 Cotillion and the Grade 2 Pennsylvania Derby.
If Fast Anna is going to make the lead, he will have to outsprint Prudhoe Bay and Favorite Tale, the one-two finishers in the Grade 3 Jersey Shore at Monmouth Park; Pure Sensation , the winner of the 5 1/2-furlong Quick Call on turf at Saratoga; and Good Bye Greg, an Arlington Park shipper who never has been headed early in four career starts.
Ritvo is removing Fast Anna’s blinkers for the Gallant Bob, which may allow jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. to take back if needed.
Fast Anna is the second foal out of Dreaming of Anna, the Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old filly of 2006. Dreaming of Anna won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies that year and went on to race two more seasons, winning 10 of 17 starts and more than $2 million. Frank Calabrese is the owner and breeder of both Dreaming of Anna and Fast Anna.
Pure Sensation, trained by Christophe Clement, rallied from fourth to win the Quick Call by a nose. Favorite Tale finished third, beaten a head, after pressing the pace of Good Bye Greg, who sprinted off to a one-length early lead. Good Bye Greg weakened to fifth in the stretch.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 5 Pure Sensation. Trainer Christophe Clement is 4 for 9 with a $4.83 ROI over the past two years going turf to dirt and route to sprint. Click for more details. – Dan Illman
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DRF FORMULATOR FACT: Since May 2010, Clement is 10 for 30 (33 percent) at Parx with an ROI of $1.86. Pure Sensation will be his first Parx starter since October 2013.
In the Jersey Shore Stakes, Prudhoe Bay and Favorite Tale were lapped on each other for most of the race with Prudhoe Bay proving best by three-quarters of a length after a long drive.
By all appearances, the Gallant Bob is going to be a very hard-fought race.
** The Alphabet Soup Handicap, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for Pennsylvania-breds is the first of four consecutive stakes Saturday at Parx.
Page McKenney and Roadhog are the co-highweights at 123 pounds and will give from two to 10 pounds to their nine opponents.
Page McKenney has won 5 of his last 7 for trainer Mary Eppler, including the off-the-turf Robellino for statebreds at Penn National last time out.
Roadhog enters off a fifth-place finish in the open Japan Racing Association Stakes at Laurel, which was won by the promising Legendary, who now is being pointed for the Grade 3 Knickerbocker at Belmont Park.