Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Changes help Princess Warrior
ARCADIA, Calif. – In early summer, after Princess Warrior lost her eighth consecutive race, trainer Ken McPeek took drastic action. He took the filly off the anti-bleeder medication Lasix.
He also moved her to turf, and those changes led to rapid success. Princess Warrior won her first start without Lasix in an allowance race on turf at Ellis Park in July. Since then, Princess Warrior has started only in stakes, including a win in the Grade 2 Mrs. Revere Stakes on Nov. 23 at Churchill Downs.
Saturday, Princess Warrior will start in the fourth Grade 1 race of her career in the $300,000 American Oaks on turf at Santa Anita.
McPeek knows the American Oaks well. He won the race last year with Daddy’s Lil Darling. Princess Warrior is McPeek’s first starter at Santa Anita since Daddy’s Lil Darling.
“She’s coming to this race better than Daddy’s Lil Darling did last year,” McPeek said Wednesday. “Her form has continued to improve after we took her off Lasix.”
Owned by Evan Trommer and his sons Andrew and Matthew, Princess Warrior has won 3 of 14 starts and earned $410,741. The Mrs. Revere Stakes, at 1 1/16 miles on turf, was Princess Warrior’s first stakes win. She raced primarily on dirt in her first nine starts.
McPeek said Princess Warrior “seemed to have some adverse reaction” to Lasix last summer. “We took her off Lasix and moved her to the grass.”
Princess Warrior should not have a problem with the 1 1/4-mile distance of the American Oaks. She finished second to Osare in the Dueling Grounds Oaks at 1 5/16 miles on turf at Kentucky Downs in September.
Princess Warrior is one of five stakes winners in a field of nine in the American Oaks, along with Californiagoldrush, Colonia, Kodiak West, and Paved.
Californiagoldrush won the Grade 2 Sands Point Stakes on Sept. 15 at Belmont Park and will start in the longest race of her career Saturday. The most intriguing runner is Amandine, who was entered for Wednesday’s $75,000 Lady of Shamrock Stakes at a mile on turf for 3-year-old fillies and would be making a rapid turnaround.
Flying Scotsman grounded
An unspecified setback will preclude the exciting 2-yearold colt Flying Scotsman from running Friday in the $75,000 Eddie Logan Stakes at Santa Anita, a mile turf race in which he would have been heavily favored.
“He has a small problem and we’re not going to be able to run,” trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said early Wednesday morning. “I’m going to have to scratch.”
Flying Scotsman delivered one of the season’s most impressive turf performances by a 2-year-old last month at Del Mar. He won the Grade 3 Cecil B. DeMille by more than four lengths, racing a mile in 1:34.44 with a final quarter in a blistering 22.88 seconds. He earned a 91 Beyer Speed Figure, the top turf figure by a 2-year-old male in North America this year.
Owned and bred by Calumet Farm, Flying Scotsman is a ridgling son of English Channel. He has two wins from three starts. He finished third in his debut, followed by a maiden victory and the Cecil B. DeMille in which he was ridden by Flavien Prat.
The defection of Flying Scotsman leaves the Eddie Logan Stakes with nine likely runners. The top contenders include sprint stakes winner Sparky Ville, Cecil B. DeMille runner-up Rijeka, along with last-out maiden winners Bob and Jackie and More Ice.
In related news, Hollendorfer has postponed the initial comeback breeze by budding 2-yearold star Instagrand. A runaway winner in both his starts, including the Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes at Del Mar before he was given a break, Instagrand is galloping regularly at Santa Anita and expected to commence working later this week.
European rider Atzeni coming
European jockey Andrea Atzeni, a rising international star, will relocate to California for early winter, adding depth to a Santa Anita colony already strengthened by the return of East Coast jockey Joel Rosario.
Atzeni, 27, was scheduled to arrive Thursday from England, where he is among the country’s leading riders and was the regular jockey for multiple Group 1 winner Postponed. Atzeni, who has won more than two dozen Group 1 races, will make his Santa Anita debut Friday.
The Italian-born Atzeni plans to ride in California for “about six weeks” before he returns to England, according to his local agent, Matt Nakatani. Atzeni is booked on two mounts Friday and two Saturday, including Kodiak West in the Grade 1 American Oaks. Atzeni’s first ride Friday is on race 4 contender Rather Nosy in a maiden race on the downhill turf course. His initial mounts are for trainers Simon Callaghan and Neil Drysdale.
Though he will be riding for the first time at Santa Anita, Atzeni is no stranger to North American racing. On Oct. 13 at Woodbine, Atzeni won two Grade 1’s – the E.P. Taylor with Sheikha Reika and Canadian International with Desert Encounter.
Atzeni has ridden in five Breeders’ Cup races the past two years. He was aboard high-odds runners and none finished in the money. This year in England, Atzeni was the sixthleading jockey with 86 wins, according to the Professional Jockeys Association.
Atzeni and Rosario, who plans to ride at Santa Anita until spring, bolster a Santa Anita colony that also includes locally based Flavien Prat, Drayden Van Dyke, Mike Smith, Joe Talamo, Geovanni Franco, and Rafael Bejarano.