Santa Anita: Susans Express shortens up, faces open company in Sweet Life Stakes
ARCADIA, Calif. – Susans Express can prove in Saturday’s $75,000 Sweet Life Stakes that her upset win in the $200,250 California Cup Oaks at Santa Anita on Jan. 25 wasn’t a fluke.
At 65-1, Susans Express was the longest shot in a field of 14 in the Cal Cup Oaks, a one-mile turf race she won by 1 1/4 lengths. The Sweet Life will be the first start in a turf sprint for Susans Express and her first stakes against open company.
“She’s in good shape,” trainer Jorge Periban said. “This is against open company. It will be a tough race.”
Since the Cal Cup Oaks, Periban has worked Susans Express twice on the main track, workouts that he described as “routine.”
“She hasn’t changed,” Periban said. “I worked her a couple of times by herself, but she doesn’t work that good by herself.”
Susans Express will be ridden by Kent Desormeaux, who was aboard for the Cal Cup Oaks. Susans Express has won 2 of 6 starts and earned $143,140 for a partnership that includes breeder Ed Delaney.
The Sweet Life Stakes is run over about 6 1/2 furlongs for 3-year-old fillies on the hillside turf course. The race drew a field of eight, including Bajan, who won two sprint stakes on dirt and synthetic tracks last fall, and the stakes-placed runners Harlington’s Rose, Smoove It, and Soresca.
Trainer Peter Miller has two runners: Sprague River, seventh in the Cal Cup Oaks after a wide trip, and On the Backstreets, who won an optional claimer on the hillside turf course Jan. 19 in her first start since July.
“I expect them both to run good races,” Miller said.
Soresca, an Irish-bred by Elusive City, raced last year in France, where she was third in the minor Criterium de Lyon last September in her stakes debut. The Sweet Life Stakes will be her first start for owner Deron Pearson and trainer Jim Cassidy.