Pavel highlights Santa Anita's stakes-loaded opening-day card

Pavel, the 3-year-old colt trained by Doug O’Neill, was never a factor in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar on Nov. 4. Sent off at 28-1, Pavel was sixth on the backstretch and faded to finish 10th, the worst loss of his five-race career.

The assignment was too tough for Pavel, who won the Grade 3 Smarty Jones Stakes at Parx Racing in Pennsylvania on Sept. 4 in his third start.

Pavel’s next race is a more appropriate goal – the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at seven furlongs at Santa Anita on Dec. 26. The $300,000 Malibu Stakes is one of four graded stakes on opening day of the track’s winter-spring meeting. Los Alamitos ends its December meeting this Sunday.

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The Malibu will be Pavel’s first start against his age group since the Smarty Jones Stakes. In between the Smarty Jones and the Breeders’ Cup he finished third in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont.

“The Malibu will be tough, but it’s a cut below the Breeders’ Cup Classic,” O’Neill said Friday. “We’ve freshened him a little bit. He came out of the Classic in good shape.”

Owned by Paul and Zillah Reddam, Pavel has run only once in a sprint, winning a maiden race at 6 1/2 furlongs at Santa Anita on July 1 in his debut.

Other leading candidates for the Malibu are Favorable Outcome, the winner of the Grade 2 Swale Stakes at Gulfstream in February; Edwards Going Left, who won the Cary Grant Stakes for California-breds at Del Mar on Nov. 19; and Irish Freedom, who was second in the Grade 3 Native Diver Stakes at Del Mar on Nov. 25.

The Grade 1 La Brea Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on Dec. 26 will be the first meeting between the multiple stakes winners Paradise Woods and Unique Bella.

Paradise Woods was third in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar on Nov. 3. Unique Bella was seventh in the BC Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 4.

The $300,000 La Brea Stakes is run at seven furlongs.

There are two Grade 2 races on Dec. 26 – the $300,000 San Antonio Stakes at 1 1/16 miles and the $200,000 Mathis Brothers Mile on turf for 3-year-olds.