Santa Anita: Conditions favor Emollient in Santa Ana

ARCADIA, Calif. – Emollient is fussy about surface. Stormy Lucy is choosy about distance. Sunday at Santa Anita, conditions are ideal for both.

Seven fillies and mares entered the Grade 2 Santa Ana Stakes, a $200,000 grass race at 1 1/8 miles. It’s the right footing for Emollient, the right trip for Stormy Lucy.

Emollient “is very particular about the surfaces she runs on,” trainer Bill Mott said. “She’s coming into the race well, and she’s run very well on synthetic and firm turf.”

The Santa Ana is the first start for Emollient since a close fourth Nov. 2 in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, a race in which Emollient gave Europeans Dank and Romantic a scare. Emollient led to stretch and missed by only a length.

Mott hopes Emollient finishes 2014 in the same BC race. She figures to be an improved filly at 4, and she already has won two Grade 1’s. She won the American Oaks on turf at Hollywood Park, and the Spinster on synthetic at Keeneland.

A five-time winner of more than $1 million for Juddmonte Farms, Emollient’s only 2013 missteps came with surface alibis. She misfired twice on dirt and once on a slow turf course at Belmont.

Sunday she will race over a fast, firm course. Regular rider Mike Smith will be aboard, while Gary Stevens rides Mott’s second entrant, Grade 3-placed Floral Romance.

Emollient and stablemate Floral Romance arrived Tuesday from Florida. Emollient is booked round trip, but Mott said Floral Romance could remain in California and possibly change trainers. She finished third in the Grade 3 Endeavour at Tampa Bay Downs last out.

The field includes Miss Serendipity, a Group 1 winner from Argentina making her third U.S. start. She also entered the Grade 1 Santa Margarita, a dirt race on Saturday. Trainer Ron McAnally said owner Anselmo Cavalllieri would decide Saturday which race she will run in. McAnally is leaning toward the Santa Ana.

“Her best race was on the turf in Argentina,” McAnally said.

Miss Serendipity set the pace both her starts in the United States, but McAnally wants her to harness her speed rather than make the lead.

“That’s not her style of running,” he said. “In Argentina, she came from off the pace, even at a mile and a quarter.”

Brice Blanc rides Miss Serendipity.

Others in the field include Emotional Kitten, Topic, Nickel’s Wild, and the main alternative to the favorite, Stormy Lucy.

Frank Lucarelli trains Stormy Lucy, runner-up by a nose two starts back in the Grade 3 Frankel at 1 1/8 miles on the Santa Anita turf. Her form is clouded by off-the-board finishes in three other graded stakes in Southern California. But those races were at one mile.

“She won’t be running in any more graded races at a mile,” Lucarelli said. “A mile and an eighth, a mile and a quarter are her best distances.”

Stormy Lucy has won five races and $272,200 from 20 starts and finished second in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks in 2012. She will be ridden for the first time Sunday by Rafael Bejarano.

“I’m excited about the race,” Lucarelli said. “This might be the best spot she’s been in in a while.”