Plein Air gives Baffert rare turf-stakes victory in Astra

ARCADIA, Calif. – The Italian import Plein Air led throughout Sunday’s $82,425 Astra Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/2 miles on turf at Santa Anita, providing Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert with a rare stakes win on turf.

Plein Air ($16.60) was Baffert’s first stakes winner on grass since Swift Lady won the Sweet Life Stakes at Santa Anita in February 2016. A large majority of Baffert’s runners compete on the main track.

Plein Air was ridden by Tyler Baze, who swept the two minor stakes on Sunday’s program. Baze won the preceding race, the $82,935 Kalookan Queen Stakes for female sprinters, with 3-1 Selcourt. Sunday marked Baze’s first stakes double since last January, when he won two stakes for California-breds on the same afternoon at Santa Anita.

Plein Air was the fourth choice in a field of 10 in the Astra Stakes. Plein Air led by as many as two lengths in the first six furlongs and held off a threat from 7-2 Evo Campo to win by three-quarters of a length. Plein Air was timed in 2:27.34.

Baze said Plein Air was comfortable on the front early in the race.

“As soon as she made the lead, she put her ears up,” Baze said. “She was so nice galloping out there. When she settled on the main turf [course], she galloped around there like she did it a million times and did it a million times here.”

Evo Campo and Estrechada, a stakes winner at Saratoga last August, moved closer to Plein Air at the end of the backstretch, but the threat was brief.

“She galloped the first mile,” Baze said. “They came to me at the three-eighths pole. She had to be fit enough to run three-eighths.”

Evo Campo finished 1 3/4 lengths in front of Lucy De. Estrechada finished fourth, followed by Queen Blossom, Shazara, How Unusual, Antonina, La Manta Gris, and Sweet Connie.

Plein Air, a 5-year-old Irish-bred mare by Manduro, races for Sunny Brook Farm and was a minor stakes winner in Italy in 2016. Later that year, she was fourth in the Group 1 Premio Lydia Tesio, a leading race for fillies and mares in Italy.

The Astra Stakes was Plein Air’s first start since a second as the odds-on favorite in a minor stakes in Italy last June. She has won 8 of 11 starts and earned $155,272.