ARCADIA, Calif. – A pair of dissimilar $100,000 stakes top the Thursday card at Santa Anita as the long winter-spring racing season meanders toward closing day. The meet ends on Sunday. The first stakes race Thursday is the Desert Stormer, race 2, a filly and mare sprint. The second stakes, the Affirmed, race 8, is a route for 3-year-olds that includes a sprinter with a longshot chance to steal the first route of his brief career. The rescheduled Desert Stormer did not fill when it was originally scheduled for June 6, but the race was written back and somehow drummed up five runners, including two supplements, when entries were taken for Thursday. Top contenders in six-furlong race are Magnificat and Revera. The Affirmed, at 1 1/16 miles, includes likely favorite Secured Freedom and the highly rated last-out maiden route winner Decisive Win. But the most interesting runner is Mo Koko, a lightly raced colt stretching out for the first time and expected to set the pace. The Desert Stormer field, in addition to Magnificat and Revera, includes comebacker Nooni. A Grade 3 winner as a juvenile, 4-year-old Nooni is making her first start in 18 months. Notwithstanding a series of fast works, she might be up against it facing racing-fit runners. :: Play Santa Anita racing with confidence. Get DRF Past Performances, Clocker Reports, and more. Richard Mandella trains Magnificat, who won a second-level allowance turf sprint on May 16. She is a multi-surface specialist, having won two of four dirt starts. Drawn outside on Thursday, with speed to press likely pacesetter Nooni, Magnificat is the most likely winner of the Desert Stormer, a race favorites have won five of the last seven editions. Revera was entered in the Honeymoon Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on June 6, but trainer John Sadler scratched her from the big-field turf mile and supplemented Revera to the Desert Stormer. Sadler acknowledged that facing older fillies and mares for the first time is a challenge. “It’s 3 and up, and with her, I’d rather be in a small field,” Sadler said. Revera won the Desi Arnaz Stakes last fall on dirt at Del Mar, and has placed in dirt stakes at Santa Anita. Her fourth-place finish in the Grade 3 Senorita on the hill was decent, but she might prefer dirt. Sadler has been red hot the past three weeks. From May 17 through Sunday, he has won 13 races from 22 starters. Nooni was a precocious 2-year-old who won her first two starts in 2024, including the Grade 3 Sorrento Stakes at Del Mar, but she tailed off when trainer Bob Baffert stretched her out. Nooni resumed training the following spring before she was sidelined. She did not work again from April 2025 until March 2026. Nooni has had 10 published works leading to the Desert Stormer. Antifona and late supplement Syntax also are entered in the Desert Stormer. Affirmed Stakes The six-runner Affirmed, race 8, is the best recent chance for Secured Freedom. Tim Yakteen trains Secured Freedom, who was considered a contender for the spring classics early this year. But after a wide-trip third in the Grade 3 Robert B. Lewis and a fourth-place finish in the Grade 2 San Felipe in early March, Secured Freedom spiked a fever and missed the Santa Anita Derby He returned May 12 at Churchill Downs and finished a respectable fourth in the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile. Based on the company he has kept, Secured Freedom is the class of the Affirmed field. Joel Rosario is his new rider. Decisive Win stretched out to score a convincing maiden victory in his last start, earning a 90 Beyer Speed Figure that is highest in the Affirmed field. Doug O’Neill trains Decisive Win, whose chance to win depends on avoiding a pace battle with stretch-out sprinter Mo Koko. Librado Barocio trains Mo Koko, who won his sprint debut April 4. He followed with a better-than-looked fourth against older allowance sprinters after breaking slowly from the rail. “We wanted to get the two-sprints-to-a-route [pattern], and we had to go against older because the 3-year-old races wouldn’t fill,” Barocio said. “So we decided to give him a good schooling there, and he got some good schooling.” Mo Koko raced inside and behind runners, missing by only three lengths. Barocio believes Mo Koko, sired by Mo Town, will appreciate the longer distance. “Going two turns, we’re hoping for a big improvement, he’s been training like he [will like] two turns. Free-running, I think that’s what he likes to do.” Armando Ayuso rides Mo Koko, who could be the speed of the field depending on the tactics of Decisive Win. Others in the Affirmed field include One More Freud, Constitution Andi, and Court of Appeal. Favorites have won four of the 11 editions of the Affirmed at Santa Anita. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.