Santa Anita: Crushed Velvet faces only three rivals in Santa Ynez Stakes

[bc_video_id:313267:]ARCADIA, Calif. – Crushed Velvet was the 9-5 second choice when she won her debut in a maiden race for sprinters by 5 1/4 lengths at Hollywood Park on Dec. 8. She’ll be a short price again in Saturday’s $200,000 Santa Ynez Stakes for 3-year-old fillies over 6 1/2 furlongs at Santa Anita.

There are only four entrants in the Grade 2 Santa Ynez Stakes, and Crushed Velvet is expected to be a solid favorite.

Trained by Bob Baffert for Peachtree Stable, Crushed Velvet starts from the outside. She showed speed in her maiden win over 6 1/2 furlongs, finishing in 1:16.71, and is likely to do the same in the Santa Ynez.

“She looked good over there,” Baffert said of the Hollywood Park race. “We knew she was a runner. She ran pretty fast the first time out.”

Baffert was left encouraged by Crushed Velvet’s late-December workouts, notably a six-furlong work in 1:13.80 on Dec. 29. Crushed Velvet is a Malibu Moon filly purchased for $220,000 at the 2012 Fasig-Tipton July yearling sale in Kentucky.

Martin Garcia has the mount on Crushed Velvet in the Santa Ynez, a race without a stakes winner.

Taste Like Candy, who drew the rail, was second to the Baffert-trained Streaming in the Grade 1 Hollywood Starlet Stakes over 1 1/16 miles at Hollywood Park on Dec. 7.

Uzziel beat maidens in a six-furlong race at Golden Gate Fields on Nov. 23. The Santa Ynez will be her first start in Southern California.

Baffert also starts Awesome Baby, who was seventh in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante on Aug. 31 and fifth in the Grade 1 Chandelier Stakes on Sept. 28, her most recent start.

Taste Like Candy, trained by Jerry Hollendorfer, is the biggest threat to Crushed Velvet. A Candy Ride filly, Taste Like Candy won a maiden race over 5 1/2 furlongs by 6 1/2 lengths in her debut at Santa Anita on Oct. 20. She was fourth for the first half-mile before drawing away in the stretch in a field of seven.

In the Starlet, Taste Like Candy set a modest pace, yielded the lead in early stretch, and was beaten 1 1/2 lengths by Streaming. If Taste Like Candy had raced from off the pace, the result could have been different, according to Dan Ward, Hollendorfer’s assistant.

“I’d loved for her to have had the stalking trip,” Ward said. “The winner had the dream trip, sitting outside of us.”

Taste Like Candy is not expected to set the pace in the Santa Ynez but should be near the front.

“I liked her race on this track,” Ward said. “She did seem to run better here than at Hollywood.”