Gamine using Las Flores as sharpener for bigger and better things

Gamine, the champion female sprinter of 2020, was supplemented for $2,000 on Thursday to Sunday’s Grade 3 Las Flores Stakes for fillies and mares at six furlongs at Santa Anita, her first start of the year.

Trainer Bob Baffert debated whether to give Gamine additional workouts before sending her to Churchill Downs for a stakes on Kentucky Derby Day, or start the 4-year-old filly in the $100,000 Las Flores.

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The Las Flores, the second race on the program, drew only four runners, and Gamine will be an overwhelming favorite to win her first start since a victory by 6 1/4 lengths in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Keeneland last November.

The Las Flores may be little more than a workout for Gamine.

“This race came up," Baffert said. “Maybe it’s a good idea. Maybe it’s a bad idea.

“I need to put a stiff work in her, and this will be it.”

Gamine drew the rail and will be ridden by John Velazquez, who has been aboard for all three of the filly’s stakes wins. Baffert considers the Las Flores as a prep for the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff for fillies and mares at seven furlongs on May 1 at Churchill Downs.

Through March, Gamine had recorded five workouts – two at a half-mile and three at five furlongs. On March 28, Gamine worked five furlongs in 58.60 seconds.

“She’s doing really well,” Baffert said. “She’s filled out a lot. I haven’t set her down, but I don’t think she’s lost her fastball.”

Gamine, owned by Michael Lund Petersen, has sufficient speed to set the pace in the Las Flores.

Her rivals are the stakes winners Qahira, trained by Baffert, and Biddy Duke, trained by Doug O’Neill, and the outsider Hang a Star, who has been second and third in stakes in the last year.

Qahira won the Kalookan Queen Stakes on Jan. 10 at Santa Anita and was third behind the Baffert-trained Merneith in the Grade 2 Santa Monica Stakes at seven furlongs on Feb. 13.

Biddy Duke was third in the Kalookan Queen and fourth in the Santa Monica. Claimed for $40,000 last May, Biddy Duke set the pace and won the Grade 3 Sen. Ken Maddy Stakes on turf last October. She is quick enough to be involved with the pace in the Las Flores, but that could be detrimental if a duel develops with Gamine.

Hang a Star, trained by Ian Kruljac, has not started since a seventh-place finish in the Grade 2 Goldikova Stakes at a mile on turf last October. Hang a Star was second in the Grade 3 Desert Stormer Stakes for fillies and mares at Santa Anita last May. Normally, that sort of performance in a sprint stakes would make Hang a Star look competitive in the Las Flores, but not this year with Gamine in the field.