Meah looking ahead after notching first Los Al win

CYPRESS, Calif. – Three weeks after she walked out of a hospital, trainer Anna Meah walked into the winner’s circle for the first time at Los Alamitos on Thursday after Catoca won an allowance race with a $40,000 claiming option.

On June 11, Meah was unseated while exercising a filly on the infield training track at Santa Anita. She fell heavily and spent the rest of the day undergoing treatment at a local hospital.

“I had nine stitches in my face, a broken nose, two black eyes, a cut leg,” she recalled Friday.

Meah, 26, was released that afternoon.

“I was back at the barn by the end of the day,” she said. “I took a few mornings off.”

Meah is restricted to riding the stable pony for the time being. Catoca was her third career win and first at Los Alamitos. She told her husband, David, who plays an active role in the day-to-day running of the barn, that a win on Thursday was vital.

“I told him, ‘We have to win today,’ ” Anna Meah recalled. “I had to get something going. We hadn’t won a race yet [at Los Alamitos]. We had to knock it off the list.”

Catoca is part of a group of approximately 20 horses Anna Meah will take to Del Mar. She began training last fall and had an oddity last November when Excellent Sunset finished first in the Kathryn Crosby Stakes there only to be disqualified for causing interference. Meah nearly had her first win in a stakes.

Instead, Meah had her first win at Santa Anita in January. Catoca was her first win since February.

At Del Mar, Excellent Sunset may start at the end of the summer meeting that ends Sept. 2. On July 19, the stable plans to run Supercommittee in the $85,000 Osunitas Stakes for fillies and mares on turf.

“It was good to get things rolling again,” Meah said. “I think we’ll have a good meet.”