Gormley points to San Felipe Stakes; Royal Mo to Rebel Stakes

ARCADIA, Calif. – Gormley, the winner of the Grade 3 Sham Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile Jan. 7, is tentatively scheduled to start in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita next Saturday, trainer John Shirreffs said on Saturday.

Shirreffs said Royal Mo, the winner of the Grade 3 Robert B. Lewis Stakes on Feb. 4, will be pointed for the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park on March 18.

Shirreffs cautioned that he could change his mind, saying the race assignments “are not etched in stone.”

On Saturday at Santa Anita, Royal Mo worked six furlongs in 1:14.80 in company with stablemate Guggenheim, who was timed in 1:15. Royal Mo was on the outside of Guggenheim on the turn and took the lead before the eighth pole. Royal Mo remained in front of Guggenheim to the wire but did not finish as well as Shirreffs would have preferred.

“He was a little slow at the end,” Shirreffs said.

Gormley is the more accomplished of the two. Last fall, Gormley won his stakes debut in the Grade 1 FrontRunner Stakes. He was later seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and rebounded with a win in the Sham Stakes. Royal Mo had his stakes debut in the Lewis, at 1 1/16 miles.

Shirreffs said he was encouraged by Gormley’s six-furlong workout in 1:11 on Feb. 27, the fastest recorded work that morning for the distance. Gormley and Royal Mo are owned by Jerry and Ann Moss.

The San Felipe Stakes is run at 1 1/16 miles and is a key prep for the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 8. The list of candidates is led by Mastery, the winner of the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity in December; Iliad, who won the Grade 2 San Vicente Stakes on Feb. 12, and Gormley.

Other probable starters are Bluegrass Envy, a maiden after five starts; Ann Arbor Eddie, a winner of two stakes for California-breds in December and January; and possibly Vending Machine, who won the Eddie Logan Stakes on turf in December and was sixth in the California Derby at Golden Gate Fields on Jan. 21.