Hollywood Park: Gypsy Robin to make another dirt stakes try in La Brea

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Gypsy Robin, the 3-year-old multiple stakes winner, has lived in a synthetic world for most of her nine-race career.

She has won three stakes on synthetic tracks at Keeneland and Presque Isle Downs and only one on a dirt track, the Sorority Stakes at Monmouth Park in 2011. Trainer Mike Puype will be hoping to close the difference when Gypsy Robin makes her second start in a Grade 1 race in the $300,000 La Brea Stakes at Santa Anita on Dec. 26.

The La Brea Stakes is part of the opening day of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting. The Hollywood Park fall meeting ends on Sunday.

Aside from the Monmouth Park race, Gypsy Robin has run well enough on dirt tracks this year to leave Puype optimistic. She was second in the Grade 1 Test Stakes at Saratoga in August, losing the seven-furlong race by two lengths to even-money favorite Contested as a 15-1 shot.

“The dirt is a concern because her synthetic record is so good,” Puype said. “She’s run well on dirt. The goal is to point her to races in the spring and summer. We can go to Keeneland if we want.”

The La Brea will be Gypsy Robin’s first start since she was acquired privately by a partnership and sent to Puype earlier this fall.

The La Brea is expected to have a strong field, including My Miss Aurelia, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2011 who suffered her first defeat in the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic at Santa Anita on Nov. 2.

Other probable starters are Summer Applause, unraced since a fourth in the Kentucky Oaks in May; Reneesgotzip, who won the Santa Ynez Stakes at Santa Anita in January and was third against males in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint; and Credit Card Roulette, an allowance race winner at Hollywood Park on Dec. 1.

Trainer Bob Baffert has three candidates – Book Review, who won stakes at Charles Town and Belmont Park before finishing fifth in the Grade 1 Gazelle Stakes at Aqueduct on Nov. 24; Candrea, a 2011 stakes winner and the winner of an allowance race at Hollywood Park on Nov. 29; and Mamma Kimbo, the winner of the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico in May but only second to Candrea on Nov. 29.