Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Autumn Miss looking crowded
ARCADIA, Calif. – The Grade 3 Autumn Miss Stakes for 3-year-old fillies on turf historically has had large fields, and on Saturday the race will have a maximum field of 14 starters, according to Santa Anita racing officials.
The candidates for the $100,000 race at a mile include the stakes winners Ms Bad Behavior, Pulpit Rider, Rayya, Street with no name, Tesora, and Toinette, as well as Flammetta, Hey Neg rita, KP Pergoliscious, Movie Moment, So Hi Society, Spring Lily, Streak of Luck, and West Palm Beach.
Toinette was supplemented on Wednesday for $2,000. Trained by Neil Drysdale, Toinette won the Grade 3 Edgewood Stakes at Churchill Downs in May and has not raced since finishing ninth in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks in July.
In this decade, the Autumn Miss Stakes has had at least 10 runners annually. Last year, Lull beat 12 rivals.
The list of candidates includes one shipper in Tesora, who is trained by Jonathan Thomas. Tesora won the Christiecat Stakes at six furlongs on turf at Belmont Park on Sept. 7 for Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and TNIP Racing.
Lerner growing operation
Andrew Lerner, a 29-year-old trainer who launched a stable in 2017, has three runners on Friday’s eight-race program at Santa Anita.
Lerner, who trains 17 horses, is hoping to grow his stable substantially, in part by buying horses at upcoming sales.
“I want to get to 40 by January,” he said on a recent morning. “We’ve got some new partners.”
Lerner is starting to attract attention with recent success. This year, he has won with 7 of 56 starters, and has won with 5 of his last 25 runners since July 14.
Part of the success can be attributed to the recent hiring of Larry Benavidez, a 44-yearold former assistant to John Sadler. Benavidez was briefly out of racing in 2017 and earlier this year before joining Lerner’s team.
“I found Andy and Andy found me,” Benavidez said.
Lerner won his first race in August 2017 at Del Mar, six months after he began training. He has a background in commercial real estate and web design and worked for trainer Mike Pender for more than a year before he began training.
Friday, Lerner starts Arctic Roll in the third race, a maiden special weight at a mile on turf; Belle Monte in the fourth race, a $14,000 to $16,000 claimer at 6 1/2 furlongs; and Platinum Equity in the sixth race, a $25,000 claimer at a mile on turf. All three are owned by Vindicate Racing of Jason Bailey and John Andersen.
Initially, Lerner owned horses in partnerships, but now said he owns very few of his runners.
“I had to train my own horses,” he said of the start of his operation.
In the summer of 2017, Lerner said he hoped to have as many as 20 horses by the end of 2018. That goal has nearly been met.
Hronises secure Pegasus berth
Pete and Kosta Hronis, whose stable includes the Breeders’ Cup hopefuls Accelerate and Catalina Cruiser, recently committed to buying a $500,000 berth in the $9 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 26, trainer John Sadler said.
As to which horse will start is unclear. Accelerate, who goes to stud in Kentucky in 2019, is the future-book favorite for the BC Classic at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3, the same day Catalina Cruiser is expected to be favored in the BC Dirt Mile.
“We have two that are going good,” Sadler said.
The Pegasus would be the final race for Accelerate before he begins a stud career at Lane’s End Farm.
“We have the right to run him if we want,” Sadler said. “That’s part of the contract.”
Four juvenile stakes at Los Al
Led by two Grade 1 races worth $300,000, Los Alamitos will run four stakes for 2-yearolds at its two-week winter meeting, which runs from Dec. 6-16.
The Starlet Stakes for fillies and the Los Alamitos CashCall Futurity will be run at 1 1/16 miles on Dec. 8. They are the final Grade 1 races for 2-yearolds this year.
The final weekend of the eight-day meeting is highlighted by two $100,000 stakes for California-breds at a mile – the Soviet Problem Stakes on Dec. 15 and the King Glorious Stakes on Dec. 16.