Smokey Image starts to get serious for San Felipe

ARCADIA, Calif. – Smokey Image had his first work since winning the Jan. 30 California Cup Derby – and his first in preparation for next month’s San Felipe Stakes – when he worked a half-mile in 47.20 seconds Monday morning at Santa Anita under jockey Victor Espinoza.

The work was a bit faster than planned by trainer Carla Gaines, owing to the Gary Mandella-trained unraced maiden Heartifix beginning a three-furlong work when Smokey Image was an eighth of a mile into his breeze, but Smokey Image went easily throughout.

“Excellent,” Espinoza said to Gaines when she asked how Smokey Image went.

“I worked him at 9 o’clock on a Monday looking for a solo work, and look what happens,” Gaines said, more amused than angry. She was happy that Espinoza didn’t ask for anything extra. “He was just sitting there,” she said.

The San Felipe on March 12 will mark a major step for Smokey Image, who is unbeaten in six starts. He has won his last three races in stakes restricted to California-breds, and the San Felipe will mark his first graded stakes race. In addition, the Grade 2, $400,000 San Felipe is shaping up as a terrific race, with Mor Spirit and Danzing Candy also headed that way at the moment.

Smokey Image, a colt by Southern Image, will come into the San Felipe off a six-week break. Gaines on Monday said she initially thought the San Felipe would be his first start of 2016, but that “he came around so quickly,” in his training in January that it made sense to get going in the Cal Cup Derby.

After the Cal Cup Derby, Gaines said she gave Smokey Image “a week of walking and jogging” before getting him back to galloping in preparation for Monday’s workout.

Espinoza, who rode Smokey Image for the first time in the Cal Cup Derby, has won five of the last six Triple Crown races, with California Chrome and then American Pharoah.