La Tia much the best in Arlington Matron

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – It is not a question of making a horse break swiftly from the starting gate: It is breaking in perfect rhythm with them. That’s the starting-gate philosophy espoused by jockey E.T. Baird, and Baird is among the best anywhere getting a horse out of the gates and onto the lead.

“I just watch their head,” Baird said. “When the head drops, I drop.”

Baird rode the 5-year-old mare La Tia for the first time Saturday in the Grade 3, 150,000 Arlington Matron Stakes at Arlington, and as so often happens, he timed the break flawlessly. La Tia broke like a rocket, opening a lead of at least two lengths strides into the race. Gently, quickly, Baird throttled her down to rating speed, and for all intents and purposes, the Matron was already over.

La Tia set decent splits of 24.14 seconds, 48.07, and 1:12.17, and she always was doing it well within herself while maintaining a clear advantage.

“I waited for her to swap leads in the stretch, and then I asked her,” said Baird.

The response was immediate, decisive. La Tia, trained by Armando de la Cerda, took a 4 1/4-length lead to the stretch call and had widened it to 6 1/4 at the finish despite being geared down late. The other seven in the Matron were left flailing in her wake, with Frivolous edging Awesome Flower and Ambusher for second. Second-choice Moment in Dixie came home a never-threatening fifth. Winning time for 1 1/8 miles on Polytrack was 1:49.66, and favored La Tia paid $5.20 – a bargain, in retrospect.

“Armando told me she was pretty kind, that she’d do whatever I wanted her to do, and he had it exactly right,” Baird said.

De la Cerda took over La Tia’s training last year for owner-breeder Salvador Hernandez. De la Cerda agreed that the Matron ranked among La Tia’s top performances. The mare, by City Place, is good on turf but perhaps even better on synthetic, over which she has gone 7-5-1-0. Grass, though, is where her next start will come, de la Cerda said, when La Tia tries to win the Illinois-bred Lincoln Heritage Stakes for the second year in a row.

De la Cerda and Hernandez made a rider change Saturday, and Baird never had sat on La Tia’s back until he got a leg up in the paddock before the Matron. Watching the race replay shortly after the victory, de la Cerda pointed at a monitor as La Tia passed the quarter pole.

“Look. She hasn’t even been asked yet.” And she hadn’t. Baird is as canny doling out speed as he is getting it at the start.