Stellar Wind resumes light training

ARCADIA, Calif. – Stellar Wind, the champion 3-year-old filly of 2015, has resumed training with John Sadler at Santa Anita for a 2016 campaign designed to begin in the spring and include the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita on Nov. 4.

Owned by Kosta and Pete Hronis, Stellar Wind has won 5 of 8 starts and earned $913,200. She was acquired privately in early 2015 and won four stakes through the season, including the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks. Stellar Wind finished second, a neck behind Stopchargingmaria, in the BC Distaff at Keeneland on Oct. 30.

“She’s just come back,” Sadler said this week. “We let her down a little bit and gave her 60 days off.”

Sadler said Stellar Wind is likely to resume racing in April or May. The $500,000 Santa Margarita Stakes at Santa Anita on March 19 is doubtful.

“I’m mapping out a calendar right now,” he said. “I want her to be her very best in the fall. I don’t think she’ll make the Santa Margarita.”

Stellar Wind is the first Eclipse Award winner for Sadler, 59, who began training in 1978.

Before the BC Distaff, Stellar Wind will have a campaign geared toward Grade 1 races for older fillies and mares in California, Sadler said. The goals include the Vanity Stakes at Santa Anita in May or June, the Clement L. Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar in August, and the Zenyatta Stakes at Santa Anita in September.

“Our first preference is the California route,” he said.