Homecoming for Gamine in Great Lady M.

Before she made her career debut in March 2020, and long before she won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Keeneland last November, or was named champion female sprinter of 2020, Gamine was based at Los Alamitos in late 2019.

At the time, she was a highly rated 2-year-old filly purchased at auction for $1.9 million earlier that year, and going through early training with Bob Baffert’s string at Los Alamitos.

Monday, Gamine is back at Los Al as the top-ranked female sprinter in the country – and a heavy favorite in the Grade 2 Great Lady M. Stakes for fillies and mares at 6 1/2 furlongs. Gamine will be ridden by Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez in his first career appearance at Los Alamitos.

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With her brilliant record of seven wins in eight starts, and recent win in the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff at Churchill Downs on May 1, Gamine is a standout in the $200,000 Great Lady M. Stakes, which drew a field of eight.

There are four other stakes winners in the field in Bella Vita, Dynasty of Her Own, Edgeway, and Qahira, but they have not raced in Grade 1 stakes let alone won four such races as Gamine has.

“You don’t think you’ll go to Los Al and run into John Velazquez,” said John Sadler, who trains the highly talented Edgeway.

The Great Lady M. Stakes is the leading race on a nine-race program that begins at 1 p.m. Pacific, and is the final day of the two-week Los Alamitos summer meeting. The Del Mar summer meeting begins on July 16, and is the next daytime Thoroughbred racing in Southern California.

Gamine, owned by Michael Petersen, breaks from post 5, and will be near the front. She set the pace in the Grade 3 Las Flores Stakes at six furlongs at Santa Anita on April 4 in her first start of the year and again in the Derby City Distaff, winning by 1 1/2 lengths over Sconsin, who won the Grade 3 Winning Colors Stakes at Churchill Downs on May 22.

In the BC Filly and Mare Sprint, Gamine was a close second for the first half-mile and pulled away in the stretch to win by 6 1/4 lengths, a victory that clinched her championship.

Edgeway, a winner of 4 of 6 starts, all for Pete and Kosta Hronis, is the most significant threat to Gamine, if there is one. Edgeway was second and third in stakes as a 3-year-old in 2020, and is unbeaten in two starts this year, both at six furlongs – an allowance race at Santa Anita on Feb. 7 and the $250,000 Carousel Stakes at Oaklawn on April 10.

Edgeway has a gap of nearly three months between starts, but that is not as big of an issue for Sadler as the presence of Gamine.

“I’m not excited to run against Gamine,” he said. “Three months has been fine for her. She’s training great.”

Hronis Racing and Sadler rate Edgeway as a long-term candidate for the BC Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 6. Edgeway stalked the pace in her two wins this year, and may use the same tactics in the Great Lady M. Stakes, the first time she will be ridden by Flavien Prat.

“She has a good style,” Sadler said. “She can make the running if she has to. We’ve got the right rider.”