Princess Secret special right from the start

MIAMI – When trainer Daniel Pita and his father, Manuel, decided in 2018 to purchase a farm in Ocala, Fla., and expand their stable, they never dreamed that within two years they’d have themselves a two-time Florida Sire Stakes winner and potential Breeders’ Cup candidate.

But such is the case with Princess Secret, who last Saturday added the 1 1/16-mile My Dear Girl Stakes to her victory in the seven-furlong Susan’s Girl four weeks earlier. Princess Secret missed any chance of sweeping the filly division of the longstanding series when she was beaten 1 1/4 lengths finishing second in the opening leg, the six-furlong Desert Vixen, decided over a sloppy track over the summer. Overall, Princess Secret has three wins and two seconds in five starts, with her only other setback coming against males in her second outing.

“My father was an owner back home in Venezuela,” Daniel Pita said. “I came here in 2000 and worked as an assistant for trainer Pablo Andrade and won a couple of Stallion races with him. This race was the biggest one, purse-wise, for me since I went out on my own in 2009.”

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Pita said he has 33 horses in training. He picked out and purchased Princess Secret, a daughter of Khozan, as a yearling for $30,000 at the 2019 OBS October sale.

“We try to look for horses in a price range we can afford,” Pita said. “It’s kind of a numbers game. The thought was that hopefully out of all the ones we buy, we’d catch a really good one that would put us on the map, and then there would be more to follow. I saw a couple of Khozans I really liked at the sale, and from Day 1, when we started to break her, we knew Princess Secret could be special. And she’s showed that so far.”

Pita said that with a little luck Princess Secret could be undefeated at this point.

“She had a really rough trip in the race against the boys, bent a shoe and grabbed a quarter during the race,” Pita explained. “She was still a little sensitive in that foot for the first Stallion race. We got it to the point she could run, but she also caught an off track, which probably didn’t help. She ran her heart out, and just got beat.”

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Pita said he had the utmost confidence Princess Secret would handle the added distance coming into the My Dear Girl.

“You’re always concerned the first time around two turns,” Pita said. “But when I worked her the last time for the race she went in 1:14 and change and did it easily, and galloped out a mile in 1:42, which at Calder is about as good as you can get. It was just a matter of her getting the trip, which she did.”

Pita said he’s followed the 2-year-old filly division closely and acknowledges there are some good ones out there, most notably Princess Noor, winner of Santa Anita’s Chandelier Stakes several hours after the My Dear Girl. But he isn’t ruling out the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 6 at Keeneland for Princess Secret.

“I’m not making any commitments just yet,” Pita said. “The mile and one-sixteenth will help her, as will the six weeks between starts.

“I’ll keep her on a short leash for now, give her a few days before sending her back to the track. If she gives me the go after she starts back training, I’ll go. If not I’ll send her back to the farm for a break.”