Grade 1 winners Obviously, Iotapa will race just once more this summer

ARCADIA, Calif. – Iotapa and Obviously, the winners of Grade 1 races Saturday at Santa Anita, will have only one race each through the end of the summer, their trainers said Sunday.

The 6-year-old Obviously won the $400,500 Shoemaker Mile on turf for the second consecutive year for owners Anthony Fanticola and Joe Scardino. Trainer Phil D’Amato said Sunday that Obviously will be pointed for the $250,000 Del Mar Mile on turf Aug. 24.

Last year, Obviously won the Grade 2 Del Mar Mile and was later fourth in the Grade 2 City of Hope Mile at Santa Anita and fifth to Horse of the Year Wise Dan in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. This year, Obviously may skip the City of Hope Mile and go from the Del Mar Mile to the BC Mile at Santa Anita on Nov. 1.

“The tentative game plan is to run him once at Del Mar and then wait for the Breeders’ Cup,” D’Amato said. “He runs so well fresh.”

Obviously earned a fees-paid berth in the BC Mile with his win in the Shoemaker through the Breeders’ Cup’s Win and You’re In program.

D’Amato, 38, won his first Grade 1 in the Shoemaker. He was an assistant to Mike Mitchell until earlier this year, when Mitchell and D’Amato switched jobs so that Mitchell could take a lesser role in the day-to-day activities of the stable. Mitchell, 66, attended the Shoemaker Mile, which was Obviously’s second start of 2014.

Last month, Obviously won the Grade 3 American Stakes.

“He was training great going into it off the bench,” D’Amato said of the American Stakes. “But for this race, he was unbelievable.”

Obviously led throughout the Shoemaker Mile, finishing 1 1/2 lengths in front of New York shipper Summer Front.

Obviously has won 11 of 20 starts and earned $1,337,361. In 2013, Obviously won the Shoemaker Mile at Hollywood Park, which was closed in December for development.

Obviously was ridden by Joe Talamo, who also rode Iotapa in the $300,250 Vanity Stakes for fillies and mares over 1 1/8 miles. Talamo had four wins Saturday and is the leading rider at the spring-summer meeting.

The Vanity was the first Grade 1 stakes win for Iotapa, who was claimed for $50,000 in 2012 by owner Hronis Racing and trainer John Sadler. Iotapa led throughout the Vanity, winning by 10 1/4 lengths over Grace Hall.

On Sunday, Sadler said that Iotapa will make her next start in the $300,000 Clement Hirsch Stakes for fillies and mares over 1 1/16 miles Aug. 2, which will be her only start until the autumn, he said.

“I think it’s perfect for us,” Sadler said.

Iotapa was a 9-2 shot in the Vanity. She led by a length on the backstretch and widened her advantage through the final half-mile.

The Vanity was Iotapa’s first start since a sixth May 3 behind the Bob Baffert-trained Midnight Lucky in the Grade 1 Humana Distaff at Churchill Downs. Sadler said he regretted putting the 4-year-old filly in that race instead of the La Troienne Stakes over 1 1/16 miles at Churchill Downs the preceding day.

“She’s been good for us,” Sadler said. “That was the only time she’s been out of the first [three]. She came out of it with a grabbed quarter. I probably put her in the wrong race. She seems better around two turns. That said – no one was beating that filly of Baffert’s that day.”