I Got a Gal may have an edge in Sweet Life Stakes

ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita returns to tradition Saturday in a race named after one of the preeminent broodmares in Thoroughbred history.

For the first time in four years, the Grade 3 Sweet Life Stakes for 3-year-old fillies will be contested down the iconic hillside turf course. It’s the same layout on which Sweet Life the racehorse raced just once, finishing fourth in an allowance race in 1999.

But as a broodmare, Sweet Life’s influence far surpassed her 4-for-13 racing career. Sweet Life produced two Breeders’ Cup winners – 2004 Juvenile Fillies winner Sweet Catomine and 2009 Ladies’ Classic (Distaff) winner Life Is Sweet. Neither raced on the hill, nor have any of the 10 entered in this year’s $100,000 Sweet Life.

Maiden winners Urban and I Got a Gal top a modest field. Ellamira is the only stakes winner; Dolly May is the only stakes-placed entrant. Allowance runner-up Ouraika shipped from the East Coast, and two-start maiden Kitty Kitana ran well in her U.S. debut.

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It is uncertain which entrant will take to a course that remains underutilized. Through last weekend, only seven turf sprints had been run on the hill compared to 36 turf sprints on the main course. At least the Sweet Life will return to the course on which it was contested from its inaugural 2010 running through 2018. The race was on dirt in 2019 and on the main turf oval in 2020 and 2021.

Urban is the horse to beat, though she needed five starts to win a maiden race. Trainer Simon Callaghan chalks it up to unfavorable conditions.

“It was just circumstance it took her a while to break her maiden,” he said.

It makes sense.

Twice she ran five furlongs, which was too short. A stakes race in her second start was too soon, and she needed an equipment change.

“She needed blinkers, and finally put it all together,” Callaghan said.

Last out, her second start with blinkers and first at 6 1/2 furlongs, she saved ground, angled out, and won by a maiden sprint deceptive three-quarters of a length. Flavien Prat rode Urban in that race and is back aboard Saturday.

Urban, a late-runner, faces a historical quirk that could be coincidental. Eight of nine times the Sweet Life was run on the hill, the winner was positioned first or second. Meanwhile, turf mile maiden winner I Got a Gal does have speed.

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I Got a Gal began her career with three dirt sprints in which she produced speed and faded. Then trainer Peter Eurton switched her to grass and stretched her to a mile. The race unfolded disastrously. I Got a Gal stumbled, grabbed a quarter, and was away last. She got rank while positioned last of 10. Going into the backstretch, jockey Juan Hernandez turned her loose and she zoomed from last to first.

Surprisingly, I Got a Gal kept running to win by three-quarters of a length. With a clean break Saturday, I Got a Gal would have a tactical edge over Urban.

The Sweet Life is the ninth and final race Saturday.