Chocolate Martini invades for Summertime Oaks

ARCADIA, Calif. – Usually at this time of year California’s top 3-year-old fillies ship from the West to pillage Grade 1’s in the East. Abel Tasman did it last year, Songbird did so the year before.

This year, the road goes the other way.

Kentucky-based Chocolate Martini shipped west to California this week and is expected to start favored in the Grade 2 Summertime Oaks on Saturday at Santa Anita.

It is not a typical move, but Chocolate Martini is not a typical filly. The big, good-looking filly was claimed for $25,000 in February, and two starts later won the Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks for trainer Tom Amoss and owner Double Doors Racing.

That makes Chocolate Martini the only stakes winner in a small Summertime Oaks field that includes front-runner Thirteen Squared, 2 for 2 sprinter Ollie’s Candy, Fools’ Paradise, Zusah, and Exuberance. The modest field is one reason Chocolate Martini is here.

“In researching what the top fillies were doing, it just made a lot of sense,” Amoss said. “It looked like a spot that we could be competitive in.”

Chocolate Martini will be facing locals and could be favored Saturday for the first time in her 3 for 8 career. The race will be absent the Santa Anita Oaks one-two finishers. Oaks winner Midnight Bisou relocated to Kentucky, and runner-up Spectator got sick and scratched from a stakes last week at Belmont.

Chocolate Martini arrived Monday in California. Amoss expects an improved effort following her fifth-place finish in the Kentucky Oaks.

“The Oaks was a strange race, [Chocolate Martini] had a great trip, but for whatever reason she did not go on,” Amoss said.

“That’s a bit of a concern, but she’s trained very, very well and we’re looking forward to hopefully getting the kind of race we got at the Fair Grounds.”

That probably would be good enough, and the Santa Anita track has been kind to her closing style at the 1 1/16-mile distance. Only one of 11 races this meet has been won by the pacesetter. Six of the last seven were won from the middle or back of the field.

That profile compromises Thirteen Squared.

“Being out of the one hole, you have to gun her out of there,” trainer Bob Baffert said, adding that Thirteen Squared is “training the best she’s ever trained.”

KEY CONTENDERS Chocolate Martini, by Broken Vow Last 3 Beyers: 82-88-86

Amoss said the filly’s attitude “is very laid back.”

“She is very easy to work with, and a ship like this was one we thought she could handle with no problem,” he said.

Flavien Prat, the meet’s leading rider, picks up the mount on Chocolate Martini.

Thirteen Squared, by Liaison Last 3 Beyers: 78-79-90

Thirteen Squared is quick, but the Summertime Oaks pace is likely to be softer than the 44.97 half she pressed last out when fourth in a sprint stakes. “She doesn’t want to run one turn,” Baffert said.

Ollie’s Candy, by Candy Ride Beyers: 77-75