Fast Draw Munnings catches Straight Up G in California Cup Derby
A contested pace, absent the last time they met, contributed to a change of fortunes for Fast Draw Munnings and Straight Up G in the $192,000 California Cup Derby on Saturday at Santa Anita, with Fast Draw Munnings getting the better of the heavy favorite this time.
When they met in the King Glorious, also for California-breds, at Los Alamitos Dec. 12, Straight Up G led from start to finish over that speedy surface, with Fast Draw Munnings finishing third. On Saturday, over a main track that was fast but deep, Straight Up G was in a fight for the lead from the start of the 1 1/16-mile race with Highland Ghost, and Fast Draw Munnings, ridden ideally by Drayden Van Dyke, pounced.
Fast Draw Munnings ($10.40), just behind and outside the two leaders down the backstretch, went through a half-mile in 48.01 seconds. He advanced three paths wide on the far turn to engage Straight Up G, and got the best of his rival through a prolonged stretch drive, prevailing by a neck.
Straight Up G, favored at 4-5, finished 3 1/4 lengths in front of third-place Finneus, the race’s second choice. Agador Spartacus, who tailed off early, passed tired rivals to finish fourth. Sippin N Kissin was fifth, with Highland Ghost stopping badly through the lane to finish last.
Fast Draw Munnings completed 1 1/16 miles in 1:46.99. Illustrative of the tiring nature of the track, the final sixteenth took 7.21 seconds.
“The main thing was to get a good break,” Van Dyke said in a post-race interview on the track’s simulcast feed, “and hope they battled like they did.”
Jeff Mullins trains Fast Draw Munnings for the Red Barons Barn of Jed Cohen and Cohen’s son Tim’s Rancho Temescal. Fast Draw Munnings is a colt by Munnings out of the Bedford Falls mare Zuzu’s Petals. This is her first foal.
“The one horse,” Mullins said, referencing Highland Ghost, “went with the favorite, softened him up, and gave us the opportunity to get by.”
Van Dyke has been aboard Fast Draw Munnings for all four of his starts. He defeated maidens on debut, sprinting 5 1/2 furlongs at Los Alamitos in September, then was third in the seven-furlong Golden State Juvenile at Del Mar before finishing third in the one-mile King Glorious, his first start around two turns.
The $110,000 winner’s share of the Cal Cup Derby increased his career earnings to $170,600.