Offlee Naughty tunes up for two-race turf stakes campaign
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ARCADIA, Calif. - Offlee Naughty followed his win in the Grade 2 Charles Whittingham Stakes at 1 1/4 miles on turf at Santa Anita on April 8 with an equally sharp effort in Saturday’s Grade 3 San Luis Rey Stakes at 1 1/2 miles on turf.
Those races are a prologue to a proposed two-race turf stakes campaign this summer – the Grade 3 San Juan Capistrano Stakes at about 1 3/4 miles at Santa Anita on June 18, and the Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap at 1 3/8 miles on Sept. 2.
“There is a lot of upside here,” trainer Michael McCarthy said Sunday.
Offlee Naughty, a 5-year-old horse by the Tapit sire Flashback, has won his last three starts, beginning with an allowance race at 1 1/4 miles on the synthetic track at Turfway Park on Dec. 11. Offlee Naughty won that race in track-record time of 2:01.88.
In the Whittingham and the San Luis Rey, Offlee Naughty closed from the back of the field to win by at least a length. In the San Luis Rey, the Brazilian Group 1 winner Planetario closed from sixth in the final half-mile to gain second in his American stakes debut.
Trained by Richard Mandella, Planetario had his first start in nearly 11 months in the San Luis Rey Stakes.
“Training up to a mile-and-a-half race is not a typical situation,” Mandella said.
Planetario, who was fifth in an allowance race last June in his American debut, won consecutive Group 1 turf races at 1 1/4 miles and 1 1/2 miles in Brazil in October and November 2021 in his final starts in that country.
Mandella said Sunday that Planetario is a candidate for the $100,000 San Juan Capistrano.
Offlee Naughty has won 5 of 17 starts and earned $370,645 for owners Jim and Donna Daniell, who McCarthy said have supported his stable since its launch in 2014.
“It was more than a horse race yesterday,” McCarthy said.
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