Santa Anita: Callaghan has high hopes for Dubawi Heights

ARCADIA, Calif. – The promise that Dubawi Heights showed in England as a 2-year-old in 2009, a season in which she was group stakes-placed and earned $380,796, never came to fruition in California last year.

All she had to show for a three-race campaign in 2010 was a maiden win.

“She had little niggling problems – that means we couldn’t get any continuity, getting two races close,” trainer Simon Callaghan said.

Dubawi Heights beat maidens at Hollywood Park last November, but emerged from the race with soreness, Callaghan said. When she starts in an allowance race at Santa Anita on Friday, those problems are behind her and the previous expectations are in place. Callaghan and the partnership that owns the 4-year-old filly expect a big season.

“I think Dubawi Heights will be very tough,” Callaghan said. “We still think she’s good.”

Dubawi Heights is part of a field of six in a first-level allowance race over a mile on turf. The race may have only five starters. Callaghan also entered Crazyforlovingyou, the winner of a maiden race at Golden Gate Fields on March 18, but the filly had lost her appetite on Wednesday morning, Callaghan said.

“I don’t know if Crazyforlovingyou will run,” Callaghan said. “If she comes back on her food, I’ll run.”

Crazyforlovingyou needed eight races to beat maidens, having run six times in Ireland in 2009 and 2010. She was fifth in her U.S. debut for Callaghan on Feb. 10 before winning a race on the Tapeta synthetic track at Golden Gate Fields.

Callaghan trained Dubawi Heights as a 2-year-old in England, before he moved his stable to California. In 2009, Dubawi Heights was third in the Group 2 Lowther Stakes over six furlongs on turf at York and later second in two lucrative sale progeny races as Ascot and Newmarket.

Last year, she did not start until September, and was eighth, second, and first in three starts.

None of the other runners in the field won their last starts, although Party With Brando was an unlucky fourth in an optional claimer over 1 1/4 miles on turf on March 17. Party With Brandy was in traffic with a furlong remaining and lost by a length.

Trained by Barry Abrams, Party With Brando has already run six times at this meeting since Dec. 27, including a win in an allowance race for statebred females on Jan. 20.