Premier Steps should appreciate softer spot
DEL MAR, Calif. – After starts in graded stakes at Santa Anita in April and May, Premier Steps might find the $90,000 Osunitas Stakes at Del Mar on Saturday to be just what she needs to win her first stakes of 2014.
Trained by Tom Proctor, Premier Steps was third in the Grade 3 Wilshire Stakes over a mile April 27 and fifth in the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes over 1 1/8 miles May 26. The Gamely was the longest career race for Premier Steps, who was beaten four lengths by the winner, Miss Serendipity. The Osunitas is run over 1 1/16 miles on turf.
“The distance will help,” said Aimee Dollase, Proctor’s assistant. “It was an experiment in the last race. We had to try it.”
A 4-year-old filly, Premier Steps is part of a field of 12 in the Osunitas, which is restricted to fillies and mares who have not won a first-place purse of $50,000 or more this year. Premier Steps starts from the rail.
Trainer John Sadler has two stakes winners in the field – Moone’s My Name, who won the American Beauty Stakes at Santa Anita in March, and Beatrice, a stakes winner in Germany and Turkey last year.
Moone’s My Name was sixth in the Grade 2 Royal Heroine Stakes over a mile on turf at Santa Anita on June 28.
“She ran in a group race, and when we drop her down, she’s tough,” Sadler said. “I think she’ll run well.”
Beatrice, 4, has not raced since winning in Turkey last September. She was in training earlier this year before Sadler opted to wait for the summer.
“I wasn’t happy with her, and I wanted to get her ready for the [summer],” Sadler said.