Gift Box tops notable names on Santa Anita Saturday work tab

ARCADIA, Calif. – Gift Box, a graded stakes winner in December in his most recent start, was declared on schedule for the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on April 6 after a six-furlong solo workout at Santa Anita on Saturday.

Gift Box, unraced since a win in the Grade 2 San Antonio Stakes on Dec. 26, was timed in 1:13.80.

“He got over the track very well,” trainer John Sadler said.

Sadler said Gift Box will have a seven-furlong workout next weekend, his final major exercise for the $600,000 Santa Anita Handicap at 1 1/4 miles. The race was scheduled for March 9, but track officials postponed the Big Cap after racing was halted in early March following a series of equine fatalities.

The racing season is scheduled to resume on Friday.

Gift Box was one of several notable horses to have workouts on Saturday for major stakes over the next two weekends.

Campaign, another Big Cap candidate for Sadler, worked seven furlongs in 1:26.60, and galloped out a mile in 1:41.

Sadler worked the promising 3-year-old Nolo Contesto six furlongs in 1:14. Nolo Contesto is a candidate for the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 6.

The Sadler-trained Catapult worked five furlongs in 1:00.80 for the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile on turf on March 30. Catapult was second in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill Downs last November.

Bob Baffert will have a busy day at Santa Anita on March 30, with runners in several leading stakes, notably the Grade 1 Beholder Mile for fillies and mares and Grade 2 San Carlos Stakes at seven furlongs.

For the Beholder Mile, Baffert will start the five-time graded stakes winner Marley’s Freedom, who worked five furlongs in 59.80 seconds on Saturday in company with Just a Smidge, another Beholder Mile candidate, who was timed in 1:00.20.

Paradise Woods, a two-time Grade 1 winner in 2017 who has struggled in recent starts, worked five furlongs in 1:01 for the Beholder Mile for trainer John Shirreffs.

Ax Man, a stakes winner at Pimlico last year, worked six furlongs in 1:12 for the San Carlos Stakes for Baffert. Ax Man won his only start this year in an optional claimer at seven furlongs on Feb. 8.

The San Carlos will include the two-time stakes winner Kanthaka, who worked six furlongs in 1:13.80 from the gate for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer on Saturday. Kanthaka worked at dawn and found unexpected company during the workout from horses from a different stable, Hollendorfer said.

“Some half-milers hooked him and he put them away at the eighth pole,” Hollendorfer said.

Rafael Bejarano will ride Kanthaka in the San Carlos, replacing Flavien Prat, who is riding in Dubai next weekend.

There were 171 workouts on the main track on Saturday, and 36 on the infield training track. Vasilika, the multiple stakes winner on turf, was the most prominent runner on the training track, going six furlongs in 1:17.20 for Hollendorfer.

Vasilika is scheduled to run in the Grade 2 Royal Heroine Stakes at a mile on turf on April 6.