Toews On Ice targets Los Alamitos Futurity

DEL MAR, Calif. – Toews On Ice, who scored his third straight stakes win in the Grade 3 Bob Hope last Saturday, likely will get a chance to stretch out in the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity for 2-year-olds on Dec. 19, trainer Bob Baffert said Wednesday.

Toews On Ice has raced five times, all in sprints. After losing his first two starts, he has won three straight.

“If he looks good, I’ll run him back in the Futurity,” Baffert said. “Might as well find out if he can go long for $350,000.”

Baffert won the Los Alamitos Futurity last year with Dortmund.

Baffert said he had yet to formulate any plans for another 2-year-old colt, Drefong, who was an impressive winner against maidens in the race following the Bob Hope. Drefong got a Beyer Speed Figure of 88; Toews On Ice got an 84.

Baffert also said that Pretty N Cool, who finished last as the favorite behind Lucky Folie in the Desi Arnaz Stakes, came out of the race “fine.”

“She ran a flat race,” Baffert said. “She got worked up going to the gate. By the time they got to the quarter pole, [jockey Martin Garcia] was out of horse. She just didn’t show up.”

Pretty N Cool had won three of her first four starts, her lone loss a second behind divisional leader Songbird in the Del Mar Debutante.

• By sending out the winners of four straight races on Sunday, Doug O’Neill vaulted into second place in the trainers’ standings with seven wins, one fewer than meet leader Phil D’Amato.

O’Neill won the first four legs of the pick six, did not have a runner in the featured Desi Arnaz Stakes, then had his last runner of the day, Over Par, finish sixth in the final race.

The four wins were one short of the Del Mar single-day record O’Neill set during the summer meeting.