Unbeaten Madone takes Surfer Girl by neck over Tetragonal

ARCADIA, Calif. - Madone will take an unbeaten record to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Keeneland on Nov. 6 after her second consecutive stakes win in the $102,000 Surfer Girl Stakes at Santa Anita on Sunday.

Madone ($4.20) won the Surfer Girl Stakes for 2-year-old fillies by a neck over 25-1 Tetragonal after the two ran together in the final sixteenth.

Ridden by Flavien Prat, Madone ran a mile on turf in 1:34.83. Prat positioned Madone in seventh on the backstretch and rallied around rivals to reach contention in early stretch.

“I made an early move and I was a little wide, but I didn’t want to take any risk,” Prat said. “When she got to the front, she waited a little bit.”

Reign of Fire, the 55-1 outsider in a field of nine, set an early pace of 22.30 seconds for the opening quarter-mile and 45.91 for a half-mile before fading from contention.

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Tetragonal closed from last under jockey Juan Hernandez to nearly steal the win from the heavily favored Madone.

“The other filly is tough,” Hernandez said. “For a moment, I thought I’d get by.”

Pizzazz, a maiden who was second in her debut at Del Mar on Aug. 28, closed through traffic to finish third, 3 3/4 lengths behind Madone.

Closing Remarks finished fourth, followed by Canoodling, Maxim Strider, Consternation, Nimbostratus, and Reign of Fire.

Madone, by the Medaglia d’Oro stallion Vancouver, races for Kaleem Shah and trainer Simon Callaghan. Madone won her debut in a one-mile maiden special weight race on turf at Del Mar on July 31 and her stakes debut in the Del Mar Juvenile Fillies Turf at a mile on Sept. 6.

Madone has earned $141,300 from her three wins, slightly more than her $120,000 purchase price at a 2-year-olds in-training sale earlier this year.

Tetragonal was a troubled seventh in the Del Mar Juvenile Fillies Turf in her American debut. An Irish-bred filly, Tetragonal won her debut at Beverley Racecourse in England on Aug. 4 before joining trainer Richard Baltas’s stable later that month.

The Surfer Girl Stakes was Prat’s sixth stakes win in six days of racing on the first two weeks of the track’s five-week autumn meeting. Prat’s goal is to align as many mounts as possible for the Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 6-7.

“It’s all a prep for the Breeders’ Cup and getting horses to do well and be qualified,” Prat said.

Prat leads all riders with 16 wins, eight more than Hernandez. Prat had four wins on Sunday, while Hernandez had three wins.