Prat booked on Hit Show, Jose Ortiz to ride Locked in Big Cap

Flavien Prat, the leading rider at the current Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, will ride Hit Show in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap on March 1, while Jose Ortiz, the top jockey at Fair Grounds, will ride Locked in the same race.

The bookings were confirmed on Thursday by Brad Cox, who trains Hit Show, and Aron Wellman, the managing director of the Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, which co-owns Locked.

Hit Show and Locked are two leading candidates for the $300,000 Santa Anita Handicap, which is run at 1 1/4 miles and is the richest race for older horses at the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting.

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Other contenders include Katonah, Express Train, and Tarantino, the first three finishers of the Grade 2 San Pasqual Stakes at Santa Anita on Jan. 25; J B Strikes Back, winner of the Grade 2 Laffit Pincay Jr., Stakes at Santa Anita on Dec. 26; Mirahmadi and New King, recent allowance race winners trained by Bob Baffert; and Midnight Mammoth, who won the Grade 3 Cougar II Stakes at 1 1/2 miles at Del Mar last July.

Express Train won the 2022 Santa Anita Handicap.

Hit Show won the Grade 3 Louisiana Stakes at 1 1/8 miles as the 13-10 favorite on a sealed and sloppy track at Fair Grounds on Jan. 14, the 5-year-old horse’s fourth stakes win in his last five starts. The Big Cap will be Hit Show’s first start at 1 1/4 miles since he finished fifth behind Mage in the 2023 Kentucky Derby.

Prat has ridden Hit Show once, a sixth-place finish in the Grade 3 Oklahoma Derby at Remington Park in September 2023.

Locked, trained by Todd Pletcher, will start at 1 1/4 miles for the first time on March 1. A 4-year-old colt, Locked was third as the 2-1 favorite in the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita. Locked did not race again until last October, easily winning an allowance race at Aqueduct. He finished the year with a win in the Grade 2 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct in December.

In his lone start this year, Locked finished second by 6 1/4 lengths as the 9-5 favorite in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational at 1 1/8 miles at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 25.

Ortiz rode Locked in his first four starts, including a win in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at 1 1/16 miles at Keeneland in October 2023.

The Big Cap is one of four major stakes on the March 1 program, along with the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile on turf, the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes for 3-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles, and the Grade 2 Buena Vista Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile on turf.

The $300,000 San Felipe Stakes is a key prep race for the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 5.

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