Santa Anita: Drysdale seeks sixth San Luis Rey score

ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Neil Drysdale has won the San Luis Rey Stakes five times and will take aim at a sixth score with a pair of runners when the Grade 2, $200,000 race is run over 1 1/2 miles on turf Saturday at Santa Anita.

Drysdale will send out Lucayan, who comes off a third-place finish in the 1 1/4-mile San Marcos Stakes on Feb. 8, and Fire With Fire, who won the Cotton Fitzsimmons Mile Stakes at Turf Paradise on Jan. 18.

Lucayan is clearly the better of the two. He has performed well in graded company since arriving from France, highlighted by a victory going 1 1/2 miles in the Grade 2 Hollywood Turf Cup in December.

“He’s probably best from nine to 10 furlongs, but there isn’t anything for him right now, and he has won going a mile and a half,” Drysdale said.

Lucayan won the French 2000 Guineas going about a mile in May 2012, but Drysdale said he’s more suited to longer distances in the United States.

“Here, these mile races are too fast for him,” said Drysdale, who trains the outstanding grass miler Winning Prize.

Lucayan does his best running on firm ground. In eight starts since arriving from France, he has finished in the money six times, his worst performance coming on yielding ground in the Canadian International at Woodbine last October.

“You take that race out, he’s got a pretty good record,” Drysdale said.

The nemesis for Lucayan has been Vagabond Shoes, who won the San Marcos, defeated Lucayan in the Del Mar Handicap last summer, and is scheduled to run in the San Luis Rey.

Fire With Fire was fifth behind Vagabond Shoes and Lucayan in the Del Mar Handicap. His three wins over the past two years have come at Fresno, Santa Rosa, and Turf Paradise, though he was third in last year’s San Luis Rey.

“He’s doing very well,” said Drysdale, who added that he decided to go in the San Luis Rey with Fire With Fire because “I’ve been trying to find somewhere to run and haven’t been able to find anything.”

Drysdale first won the San Luis Rey in 1990 with Prized, who had won the Breeders’ Cup Turf the previous fall. His subsequent winners were Single Empire in 1999, Fourty Niners Son in 2007, and the 2010 and 2012 editions with Bourbon Bay.