Quisisana finds perfect spot for return at Santa Anita

ARCADIA, Calif. – Quisisana returns from a 10-month layoff in Friday’s $75,000 Kalookan Queen Handicap at Santa Anita and conditions are ideal for the 6-year-old mare.

The race is run over 6 1/2 furlongs, and Quisisana is unbeaten in six starts over six and 6 1/2 furlongs on main tracks in her 11-race career. All six of those victories came on a synthetic surface, and Friday’s race is run on Santa Anita’s new sand-and-clay track. But the new surface does not concern trainer Mike Puype.

“I don’t think you need to be as fit on this track as you did on the synthetic track,” Puype said. “I wouldn’t say she’s perfectly fit, but she’s ready to run. We’re ready to go.”

Owned by Ran Jan Racing, Quisisana has won 6 of 11 starts and $317,098, highlighted by a nose win in the Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Sprint here last January. She made one more start after that, winning an allowance race over six furlongs last March, before going to the sidelines.

“She just needed time,” Puype said.

Quisisana’s stakes win was flattered as 2010 continued. Quisisana beat Dubai Majesty in the Sunshine Millions, and that mare won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint over seven furlongs at Churchill Downs on Nov. 5. Puype said that the distance of the BC Filly and Mare Sprint would have been a bit too long for Quisisana had she been racing in the fall.

Quisisana is best as a stalke. She is unlikely to have a blistering pace to pursue in the Kalookan Queen. Subsidized, who drew the outside in a field of six, has shown speed. She won Beverly Lewis Stakes over 6 1/2 furlongs at Fairplex Park on Sept. 9, and was fourth in the Playa del Rey Stakes at Hollywood Park on Nov. 14, her only subsequent start.

Subsidized, 4, is trained by Bob Baffert, who has three runners in the field, including Gilded Gem and Mother Ruth.

Gilded Gem was scratched from Sunday’s Monrovia Stakes for this race. Mother Ruth won the Louis Rowan Stakes Stakes at Hollywood Park in October and was second in the Playa del Rey Stakes.

The richest filly in the field is U R All That I Am, the winner of three stakes from April to September last year, but sixth in the Cat’s Cradle Handicap at Hollywood park last month.