Lady Tapit, She's a Warrior audition for stakes

ARCADIA, Calif. – Stablemates Lady Tapit and She’s a Warrior meet for the first time in a second-level optional $62,500 claimer at a mile for fillies and mares at Santa Anita on Friday.

Both runners are owned by Lee and Susan Searing and have just one lifetime win, so they are racing above their eligibility in this spot and need positive races to show trainer Peter Eurton that they belong in upcoming stakes.

The optional claimer is the fourth of eight races on the first day of the Santa Anita spring-summer meeting, which runs through July 4. First post is 1 p.m. Pacific.

Lady Tapit was fourth in both the Grade 2 Santa Maria Stakes on Feb. 11 and the Grade 1 Santa Margarita Stakes on March 18, losing both races to Vale Dori. Eurton said he has been encouraged by Lady Tapit’s recent training, including two workouts on the infield training track since the Santa Margarita.

She’s a Warrior has not raced since finishing eighth in an optional claimer on turf last October that Eurton describes as a failed experiment.

“We wanted to see if that was something she wanted to do, and it obviously wasn’t,” he said. “We turned her out for no other reason than to let her grow.

“I think she’s grown up a bit. We’ll see if she’s better.”

Last year, She’s a Warrior was third in three graded stakes, including the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks and Grade 2 Las Virgenes Stakes to the year’s champion 3-year-old filly, Songbird.

The optional claimer drew five fillies and mares. Enduring Erin, fifth in the Grade 2 La Canada Stakes in January, is entered to be claimed for $62,500. Lunar Empress starts for the first time since finishing third in a similar race at six furlongs in February.

Faithfully, who has won two of her last three starts, returns to racing for the first time since last June. Trained by Bob Baffert, Faithfully won an allowance race at 1 1/16 miles at Churchill Downs last June and was turned out last summer.

“She was doing really well, and she came up with a minor injury, so I gave her time,” Baffert said. “She didn’t need surgery.”

Faithfully was purchased for $700,000 as a yearling and races for Hill ‘n’ Dale Equine Holdings and Bruce Lunsford.