Santa Anita: Talamo has options aboard Fanticola in American Beauty Stakes
ARCADIA, Calif. – There will be no major strategy session between jockey Joe Talamo and trainer Mike Mitchell in the paddock before Saturday’s $75,000 American Beauty Stakes at Santa Anita.
Talamo will ride Fanticola for Mitchell, who said the less coaching he does, the better the situation may turn out.
“I won’t say anything to Joe,” Mitchell said Thursday. “If he wants to use her a bit, he can.”
Talamo is the only jockey Fanticola has known. They have teamed to win 3 of 8 starts but have lost their last two starts – a second in the Megahertz Stakes over a mile on turf Jan. 18 and a third in the Wishing Well Stakes over about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course Feb. 9. In both races, Fanticola was beaten less than a length.
“I think she’s run hard, and she tries,” Mitchell said. “What you see is what you get.”
The American Beauty Stakes is run over a mile on turf for fillies and mares. Fanticola could set the pace, or Talamo could opt to position the filly as a stalker. Last October, Fanticola closed from fourth in a field 10 to win an allowance race on the hillside turf course. Last December, she led throughout an allowance race over 1 1/16 miles on turf at Hollywood Park.
Fanticola races for Anthony Fanticola and Joseph Scardino. A 4-year-old, Fanticola is part of a field of eight in the American Beauty. Golden Production, who won the Paseana Stakes in January, and Unusual Hottie, the winner of two stakes for California-breds on turf last summer, are the only runners in the field with stakes wins in the last year.
Golden Production was last of six in the Grade 2 Santa Maria Stakes on Feb. 15. Unusual Hottie, supplemented to the American Beauty for $1,500 on Wednesday, was a troubled eighth in the Grade 2 Buena Vista Stakes on Feb. 17. Unusual Hottie will wear blinkers for the first time in the American Beauty.
There will be ample support for One Time Only, a 4-year-old filly who makes her stakes debut. Owned by Glen Hill Farm and trained by Tom Proctor, One Time Only has won her last two starts, a maiden race over a mile on turf Jan. 2 and an allowance race on the hillside turf course Feb. 22.