Newgrange on target for Santa Anita Handicap
ARCADIA, Calif. – Newgrange, who won his 4-year-old debut in the Grade 2 San Pasqual Stakes on Jan. 28, is on schedule for the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on March 4.
Trainer Phil D’Amato said over the weekend that the $500,000 Santa Anita Handicap at 1 1/4 miles is a preferred goal with the hope that Newgrange can play a role in the national older horse division as the year progresses.
“We’d like to continue to develop him and make a Breeders’ Cup horse out of him,” D’Amato said. “He will need to keep developing.”
The Breeders’ Cup races will be held at Santa Anita on Nov. 3-4, highlighted by the BC Classic at 1 1/4 miles.
“It’s in his backyard,” D’Amato said of the Breeders’ Cup. “He has an affinity for the track.”
Owned by the partnership of David Bernsen, the Little Red Feather Racing, and Rockingham Ranch, Newgrange won the $202,000 San Pasqual Stakes at 1 1/8 miles by a length. He ran an erratic race, stalking the pace on the turn and fading slightly before rallying through the stretch for the fifth win in his eight-race career.
A 4-year-old colt by Violence, Newgrange was purchased for $325,000 by his current owners at a horses in training sale in Kentucky last July.
The Santa Anita Handicap will be missing multiple stakes winners Country Grammer and Taiba, the two leading older horses in Southern California. Trained by Bob Baffert, Country Grammer and Taiba are scheduled to start in the $20 million Saudi Cup in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 25.
D’Amato said that Earls Rock will be pointed to the Grade 3 American Stakes at a mile on turf April 2 after a first career graded stakes win in the Grade 3 Thunder Road Stakes on Feb. 4.
The Grade 3 San Francisco Mile on turf at Golden Gate Fields on April 29 is a long-range goal.
“I think he likes spacing between races,” D’Amato said.
D’Amato said there is a remote possibility that Earls Rock could start in the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile on turf on March 4 at Santa Anita, but that the stable has the multiple stakes winners Balnikhov and Hong Kong Harry for the race.
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