Sharing points to American Oaks

Sharing, the four-time stakes winner, will have her second trip to California in as many months for the Grade 1 American Oaks at Santa Anita on Dec. 26.

Sharing was fourth, beaten three-quarters of a length, in the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile on turf at Del Mar on Nov. 29. The $300,000 American Oaks is run at 1 1/4 miles on turf for 3-year-old fillies.

Sharing, owned by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Gainesway Stable, is trained by Graham Motion, who is based in Maryland.

In the Matriarch, Sharing was third to the final furlong and finished a neck behind third-place finisher Juliet Foxtrot in her debut against older fillies and mares.

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“I thought she ran really well,” Motion said Sunday. “I was frustrated she came away with nothing to show for it.”

John Velazquez is booked to ride Sharing in the American Oaks, but Motion said jockey Manny Franco will retain the mount in 2021.

On Jan. 1, Motion plans to start True Valour in the Grade 2 Joe Hernandez Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs on turf at Santa Anita. Owned by Larry Johnson, True Valour was purchased for $225,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Horses of Racing Age Sale in July.

True Valour was third in the $100,000 Aqueduct Turf Sprint Championship at six furlongs on Nov. 28 in his most recent start. True Valour was previously trained in California by Simon Callaghan and was a multiple stakes winner for that stable, including the Grade 2 City of Hope Mile in October 2019.

With the start of the winter-spring meeting on Dec. 26, Santa Anita is running turf sprints at six furlongs and 6 1/2 furlongs from a newly built chute adjacent to the seven-furlong chute on the main track. Horses will start on the chute before crossing the first turn of the main track and will run approximately 5 1/2 furlongs on the oval portion of the turf course before reaching the finish.

Santa Anita has not run sprints at about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course since March 2019, a decision made in the aftermath of a series of equine fatalities in the early months of that year. The hillside portion of the course is used only for the starts of marathon turf races.