Trainer Mandella has head-scratcher day at Santa Anita

ARCADIA, Calif. - Of the senior turf runners in Saturday's stakes at Santa Anita for trainer Richard Mandella, one gave a career-best performance while the other displayed the most perplexing race of his accomplished career.

Bombard, 8, won his first graded stakes in the Grade 3 Daytona Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs on turf, obliging as the 7-10 favorite.

United, a five-time stakes winner and millionaire who was second in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Turf, finished last of four in the Grade 2 Charles Whittingham Stakes at 1 1/4 miles on turf, a race the 6-year-old won in 2020.

United’s loss to Award Winner, at odds of 3-10, resulted in a battery of post-race tests that provided few immediate clues regarding the performance.

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“We’ve gone over him,” Mandella said trackside on Sunday morning. “We scoped him and he’s clean. We really don’t have an excuse.”

United stalked the pace to the backstretch and offered no threat in the stretch.

“He never got into the race,” Mandella said. “We will thoroughly check him over this week.”

United has won 8 of 19 starts. The loss in the Whittingham was the first time the gelding finished outside of the first three in a stakes in California in his 11th appearance in such a race. United was eighth of 10 in the BC Turf at Keeneland last November.

Bombard won two minor stakes earlier in his career, and was eighth in the BC Turf Sprint at Keeneland last November. The Daytona Stakes was Bombard’s second start of 2021, preceded by a game second to the multiple stakes winner Gregorian Chant in an allowance race at six furlongs on turf on April 25.

Gregorian Chant is bound for the Grade 1 Jaipur Stakes at six furlongs on turf at Belmont Park on Saturday.

In the Daytona Stakes, Bombard led throughout, finishing 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:14.47.

“It was probably his best race,” Mandella said.

Bombard has won 6 of 18 starts. He had two starts as a 6-year-old in 2019 and four starts last year. Mandella said the $75,000 Siren Lure Stakes at six furlongs on turf on June 19 is a possible final start of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting for Bombard. The meeting ends June 20 and turf racing does not resume in Southern California until the start of the Del Mar summer meeting on July 16.

“I don’t over-race him, to say the least,” Mandella said. “That’s kind of been the history.”

Aside from United’s loss, the stable had tough news in the last week when the 3-year-old filly Astute showed signs of soreness following a six-furlong workout in 1:10.80 on May 23. The setback will prevent Astute from a start in the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes at a mile for 3-year-old fillies at Belmont Park on Saturday.

“She came up a little sore and we’re trying to figure it out,” Mandella said.

Mandella will have two runners at Belmont Park this weekend. Tizamagician, the nine-length winner of the Grade 3 Tokyo City Stakes at 1 1/2 miles on April 18, is scheduled to start in Saturday’s Grade 2 Brooklyn Stakes at 1 1/2 miles, while Missy P, second to Astute in the $76,636 Angels Flight Stakes on May 1, is expected to run in the $150,000 Jersey Girl Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at six furlongs on Sunday.