Santa Anita: Big day looms for Jimmy Creed

ARCADIA, Calif. - Jimmy Creed can earn a spot in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Nov. 3 with a win or close finish in Saturday’s $250,000 Santa Anita Sprint Championship.

The Grade 1 Sprint Championship will be the graded stakes debut for the 3-year-old Jimmy Creed, and a major test. The race is led by Amazombie, the winner of the 2011 BC Sprint and the 2011 champion sprinter.

Trained by Richard Mandella for B. Wayne Hughes, Jimmy Creed was second to Fed Biz in the El Cajon Stakes over a mile for 3-year-olds at Del Mar on Aug. 31 in his stakes debut. Before that, Jimmy Creed won two six-furlong races – a maiden race and allowance race.

“With my young horses, I don’t try to make them good sprinters,” Mandella said. “He’s a natural.”

The Santa Anita Sprint Championship is part of the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, offering a fees-paid berth the BC Sprint on Nov. 3. Mandella’s back-up plan on Breeders’ Cup Day is the $100,000 Damascus Stakes for 3-year-olds over seven furlongs.

“If I find out it’s too tough, I will run him in the Damascus,” Mandella said.

“If he runs good, I know where I’ll go. It’s kind of a test.”