Kanthaka, Moonshine Memories add sparkle to stakes

ARCADIA, Calif. – The graded stakes winners Kanthaka and Moonshine Memories have been entered in stakes for 3-year-old sprinters at Santa Anita on Saturday.

Kanthaka will start in the Grade 3 Lazaro Barrera Stakes at seven furlongs in an attempt to rebound from a sixth-place finish in the Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 7. Good Magic won the Blue Grass Stakes and was second in the Kentucky Derby last Saturday.

Moonshine Memories has been supplemented for a fee of $1,500 to the $75,000 Angels Flight Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at seven furlongs, which will be her first start since a seventh-place finish in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar last November.

Trained by Simon Callaghan, Moonshine Memories won consecutive Grade 1 races last September in the Del Mar Debutante at seven furlongs and the 1 1/16-mile Chandelier Stakes at Santa Anita. Callaghan hopes to use the Angels Flight as a prep for the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at a mile at Belmont Park on June 9.

The $100,000 Barrera will not have a large field.

The candidates include King Cause, a maiden race winner for trainer Doug O’Neill on April 29, and Zulfikhar and McKale, the first two finishers of an optional claimer on April 15. Zulfikhar and McKale are trained by Bob Baffert.

The fast turnaround from the maiden race for King Cause is not a concern for O’Neill.

“He came out of it in great shape,” said O’Neill.

O’Neill’s stable has been in excellent form recently, winning with six of 10 starters at Santa Anita from May 4 through last Sunday.

Moonshine Memories is part of a projected field of nine in the Angels Flight Stakes, a group expected to include the stakes winners Show It N Moe It and Surrender Now and the stakes-placed Thirteen Squared and Uppercut.