Special Club wheels back quickly after maiden score

ARCADIA, Calif. – Maiden winner Special Club hardly compares to streaking stakes winners The Chosen Vron or Kings River Knight, but this week at Santa Anita their similarities are unmistakable – all figure to be strongly favored in races for California-breds.

Special Club looms an allowance standout Friday. The Chosen Vron and Kings River Knight put four-race win streaks on the line Saturday in a pair of $100,000 stakes on a card with five California-bred stakes. The Chosen Vron is expected in the Thor’s Echo, a dirt sprint. Kings River Knight goes in the Crystal Water, a turf mile.

It is too soon to consider Special Club as a potential stakes horse, unless you’re trainer Craig Lewis.

“I just hope this horse is as good as I think he is,” he said. “He’s a good-looking, beautiful horse with a tremendous, athletic body. He gives the appearance of a horse that can run.”

Less than two weeks after a decisive maiden victory, Special Club wheels back Friday in race 3, a turf sprint for California-bred 3-year-olds. The co-feature Friday is race 8, an entry-level allowance/optional-claiming sprint with stakes winners Principe Carlo, Ultimate, and Katar.

The challenge facing Special Club on Friday is to reproduce his maiden win, at the same five-furlong turf distance, while wheeling back in only 12 days. His maiden win was May 12.

“He didn’t have to run hard,” Lewis noted, adding that jockey Juan Hernandez “geared him down the last eighth. He basically worked a half-mile. The race did nothing to him.”

Special Club did not beat much, but the win was visually impressive. Someone teased Lewis that the colt, sired by Clubhouse Ride, needed six starts just to win a maiden race. “Just like his daddy,” Lewis countered. “I got him to the winner’s circle in his sixth start, and what happened?”

Clubhouse Ride, trained by Lewis, earned $1.3 million on the racetrack and ranks as one of the top stallions in California.

Special Club’s rivals in the entry-level allowance/optional $50,000 claiming race include Beer Money and Refocus, both entered for the optional tag. Donnie the Chiro would provide pace while wheeling back in six days. He won a 1,000-yard maiden race on Saturday at Los Alamitos.

The secondary feature Friday is race 8, which carries a $50,000 optional-claiming price, going six furlongs on the dirt. Principe Carlo’s nine wins include a California-bred stakes at Del Mar and a minor stakes at Turf Paradise. He runs for the optional tag Friday and his chance to win took a hit when he drew the inside post.

Ultimate’s nine wins include a $100,000 stakes last summer at Prairie Meadows. Claimed two starts ago for $30,000 by trainer Doug O’Neill, Ultimate could post a minor upset from the outside post. He also runs for the optional claim tag.

Katar, whose eight wins include stakes at Turf Paradise and Arapahoe Park, will be making his first start in California. Katar enters off a pair of lopsided stakes victories against Arizona-breds at Turf Paradise.

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