Mandella gets 2,000th win with Catch a Flight in Precisionist
ARCADIA, Calif. - Catch a Flight gave Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella the 2,000th win of his career in Saturday’s $100,750 Precisionist Stakes at Santa Anita, and, in doing so, confirmed his status as a contender for the $500,000 Gold Cup at Santa Anita on June 27.
Catch a Flight ($4.80) ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:42.22, finishing three-quarters of a length in front of 8-1 Sammy Mandeville. Flavien Prat rode the winner, the first graded stakes win in the United States for the 22-year-old native of France. Prat, who won three races on Saturday, won the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac at Longchamp Racecourse in Paris on the 2-year-old filly Indonesienne in 2013.
Sent off favored in the Grade 3 Precisionist, Catch a Flight rallied from fifth in a field of eighth. Prat had the 5-year-old Argentine-bred horse off a quick pace of 46.11 seconds for the first half-mile set by Mystery Train, and waited until the field reached the turn before moving Catch a Flight toward the front.
Catch a Flight took the lead before the eighth pole and was ridden to the wire to maintain his lead.
“We saw there was a lot of speed and we settled him back,” Mandella said. “Little Flavien rode him like the champion that he is.”
Sammy Mandeville, who was last of nine in the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap on April 11, finished 1 1/4 lengths in front of 7-2 Motown Men, who was claimed for $40,000 in March. Blue Tone finished fourth, followed by Magic Mark, Rousing Sermon, Mystery Train, and Fury Kapcori.
Mandella, 64, began training in 1974. He has trained five champions, who have won seven titles, including Beholder, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2012 and champion 3-year-old filly of 2013.
“Winning doesn’t get old,” he said of the milestone. “It’s great, but it took a long time,”
Catch a Flight has won 8 of 14 starts and earned $273,239. By Giant’s Causeway, Catch a Flight was third in a Group 1 in Brazil in 2014, and has won two of four starts since joining Mandella’s stable last year. Catch a Flight won an optional claimer in his second start in the United States on Feb. 13 and was third in the $1 million Santa Anita Handicap on March 7, his most recent start before the Precisionist.
Catch a Flight races for Julio Bozano’s Haras Santa Maria de Araras. Mandella said that Catch a Flight could have two more starts at the current spring-summer meeting – the $200,000 Californian Stakes at 1 1/8 miles on May 30 and the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita.