Red King perfectly suited by starter allowance eligibility conditions

After four wins, including two in stakes, and earnings of $355,020, the $35,000 claim of Red King at Santa Anita in February 2019 still has its benefits.

Saturday at Santa Anita, Red King will have his 2021 debut in a starter allowance at 1 1/2 miles on turf for horses that have raced for claiming prices of $40,000 or less since the start of 2019. Red King was claimed on Feb. 8, 2019.

“He barely qualified,” trainer Phil D’Amato said.

Last year, Red King won the Grade 3 San Juan Capistrano Stakes at about 1 3/4 miles on turf at Santa Anita in June and the Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap at 1 3/8 miles in August. The win in the Del Mar Handicap gave Red King a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Keeneland last November. Red King finished ninth at 22-1 and was later fifth in the Grade 2 Hollywood Turf Cup at Del Mar on Nov. 27 in his final start of the year.

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“He shipped to Keeneland and came back and ran again, so this was the master plan to freshen him up and start his campaign,” D’Amato said.

“He’s fresh and happy and he’s put on a little weight.”

The starter allowance is part of a four-race series intended to lure runners to graded stakes at longer turf distances in the final months of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting. The winner of Saturday’s race will receive a berth to the Grade 2 Charles Whittingham Stakes at 1 1/4 miles on May 29 or the San Juan Capistrano on June 19.

“With the way the conditions are, we got lucky and thought this was a good starting point for him to find his stride,” D’Amato said.

A 7-year-old horse, Red King races for the partnership of Little Red Feather Racing, Gordon Jacobsen, and Philip Belmonte.

The presence of the starter allowance kept Red King, and a few of his rivals, from starting in Saturday’s Grade 3 San Luis Rey Stakes at 1 1/2 miles on turf, which is led by the four-time stakes winner United. D’Amato has two runners in that field – Say the Word, winner of the Grade 1 Northern Dancer Stakes at Woodbine last October, and Acclimate, winner of the 2019 Del Mar Handicap.

The starter allowance field include Ward ’n Jerry, who won the 2020 San Luis Rey, and Oscar Dominguez, who won the Hollywood Turf Cup in 2019. Ward ’n Jerry won a starter allowance at 1 1/4 miles on turf on Feb. 20 and has a berth to the Whittingham or San Juan Capistrano.

D’Amato would like to run Red King in the San Juan Capistrano, if the spring goes as planned.

“He loved it last year,” D’Amato said. “We would definitely have an eye on that for him.”