Show Card's future bright coming into Dark Mirage Stakes

Uncertainty has blurred the autumn campaign of the top older female at Santa Anita, but filly-mare clarity is on display this weekend at Los Alamitos.

Saturday is showtime for Show Card.

Show Card’s recent runaway in a restricted stakes hardly compares to Grade 1 winner Adare Manor, but the 10-length romp stamps Show Card the likely winner of the $125,000 Dark Mirage Stakes. Bob Baffert trains Show Card and Adare Manor, the division leader and a question mark.

Six fillies and mares entered the one-mile Dark Mirage. Show Card is the only entrant who ran well last time out. Grade 2 winner Coffee in Bed and multiple stakes winner Ascendancy lost by double digits; Victorious, Indy’s Star, and Gila lost by similar margins or finished last.

The Dark Mirage is the first of two dirt-route stakes for local fillies and mares in an eight-day period. While the Dark Mirage at Los Alamitos is easy to decipher, the Grade 2 Zenyatta Stakes on Sept. 29 at Santa Anita is murky. Presumptive favorite Adare Manor may start, she may not.

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Days before Show Card crushed the Tranquility Lake on Sept. 2 at Del Mar, Adare Manor tied up and was scratched from the Grade 1 Pacific Classic. The setback disrupted Adare Manor’s training. A multiple Grade 1 winner this year, including the Apple Blossom at Oaklawn Park and Clement L. Hirsch at Del Mar, Adare Manor’s path to the Breeders’ Cup Distaff got complicated.

Adare Manor walked for several days before she resumed light training, but as of midweek she had not worked since Aug. 24. Baffert was asked if Adare Manor would make the Zenyatta.

“I don’t know yet,” he said Wednesday. “She’s planning on breezing this week, then I’ll know.”

Baffert is more certain about Show Card, whose comeback 19 days ago was opposite her last start. Show Card blew her cool in the Santa Anita paddock before the Grade 2 Summertime Oaks and finished last by nearly 20. Three months later at Del Mar, she was a different filly.

“She behaved herself, she was relaxed,” Baffert said. “She’s come back and worked well, hopefully she behaves herself. She’s doing well.”

Show Card has won 3 of 6 starts for owner-breeder Juddmonte Farms. Her up-front running style allows jockey Juan Hernandez to either set or press the pace in the Dark Mirage. On paper, she looks like a slam dunk.

Coffee in Bed is the class of the Dark Mirage field based on her spring races at Santa Anita. She won the Grade 2 Santa Maria Stakes and finished second to Adare Manor in the Grade 2 Santa Margarita. But her summer campaign was derailed by minor ailments, and her comeback was puzzling. Coffee in Bed finished next to last in the Clement L. Hirsch, beaten 13 lengths.

“She just had a bad day,” said trainer Richard Mandella, who changed things up. Instead of shipping her back to his main stable at Santa Anita after the Del Mar meet ended, Mandella sent her to Los Alamitos to familiarize her with the surface and prepare for the Dark Mirage.

“I’ve had her over there for a while,” Mandella said. “We didn’t move her back [to Santa Anita], we sent her” to Los Alamitos.

Kyle Frey rides 3-for-11 Coffee in Bed, owned by Spendthrift Farm. The last time Coffee in Bed lost by double digits, in March, she won her next start.

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Ascendancy is an 8-for-24 stakes winner that trainer O.J. Jauregui knows is better than her 14-length loss to Show Card last out.

“I think she was just too close to the pace. She likes to be a little more out of it,” Jauregui said. Armando Ayuso rides Ascendancy.

Jauregui also trains Dreamfyre, who won a pair of Grade 3 races as a 2-year-old last season and is nearing a comeback that was postponed by recurring foot issues. Dreamfyre runs 6 1/2 furlongs on turf Sept. 28 at Santa Anita in the $100,000 Unzip Me Stakes.

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