Sword Zorro eases back into racing in allowance race

Sword Zorro finished first in two stakes in Southern California last year, but was allowed to keep only one. He won the Grade 3 La Jolla Handicap at Del Mar last summer, only to be disqualified and placed third for causing interference in the stretch.

After a troubled seventh in the Grade 2 Del Mar Derby last September, Sword Zorro was turned out. He returns to racing in an allowance race on Saturday that trainer John Sadler hopes will lead to starts in stakes as soon as June.

“He just needed a break with the idea of getting him ready for a 4-year-old campaign,” Sadler said. “We think a lot of him, obviously.”

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In April 2021, Sword Zorro won the Singletary Stakes over the same turf course and one-mile distance of Sunday’s race.

Sword Zorro was beaten 2 1/4 lengths by None Above the Law after a wide trip in the Del Mar Derby at 1 1/8 miles on turf in September.

Sadler has plans to run Sword Zorro in stakes this summer, possibly in the Grade 3 American Stakes at a mile on turf on June 19, closing day of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting.

Sword Zorro, owned by Yuesheng Zhang, drew the rail in a field of seven in the first of nine races at Santa Anita on Saturday. Sword Zorro will be ridden for the first time by Drayden Van Dyke, a replacement for Umberto Rispoli, who has relocated to Kentucky.

The field includes Hudson Ridge, who was promoted from third to second in the La Jolla Handicap and was a troubled eighth in a race at this level on the hillside turf course on April, and Irideo, a Group 1 winner in Argentina in 2020 who finished last of seven in an allowance race at 1 1/8 miles on turf on April 16 in his American debut and first start in 16 months.

The allowance race will be the California debut of Tidal Forces, a winner at Gulfstream Park and Woodbine last year who was ninth of 13 in the Queen’s Plate Stakes at Woodbine last August.