Great Lady M. Stakes top two headed different directions for next starts

CYPRESS, Calif. – Marley’s Freedom and Anonymity, the first two finishers of the Grade 2 Great Lady M. Stakes at Los Alamitos on July 6, will start on different sides of the country later this summer.

Marley’s Freedom is likely to run in the Grade 1 Ballerina Stakes at seven furlongs at Saratoga on Aug. 24, trainer Bob Baffert said Friday. Owned by Cicero Farms, Marley’s Freedom won the 2018 Ballerina, one of four stakes wins last year for the now 5-year-old mare. Marley’s Freedom was fourth by a half-length in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Churchill Downs last November.

Anonymity was third in the BC Filly and Mare Sprint and was later sidelined to have a bone chip removed from a knee, trainer Richard Mandella said. The Great Lady M. Stakes was Anonymity’s first start of 2019.

Mandella said Friday that Anonymity will be considered for two stakes for fillies and mares at Del Mar – the Grade 1 Clement Hirsch Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on July 28 or the Grade 3 Rancho Bernardo Handicap at 6 1/2 furlongs on Aug. 11.

Owned by Larry, Nancy, and Jaime Roth’s LNJ Foxwoods, Anonymity was part of a group of horses Mandella shipped to Del Mar on Friday.

“The next few days will tell us,” Mandella said of a race goal. “We’ll see how she does at Del Mar.”

Extra Hope, who was fourth in a division of the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn in March, worked three furlongs in 39.80 seconds at Santa Anita on Friday. Mandella described the exercise as an “open gallop” and said Extra Hope could start before the Del Mar summer meeting ends on Sept. 2.