Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Baffert’s Crystal Ball jumps from maiden win to CCA Oaks
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – While trainer Bob Baffert will give Gamine more time to recover from her ultra-impressive victory in the Grade 1 Acorn at Belmont Park last month, he will seek another major Grade 1 victory for 3-year-old fillies when he sends out Crystal Ball in Saturday’s Grade 1, $350,000 Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga.
Crystal Ball, a daughter of Malibu Moon, finished third in her debut going a mile in May at Santa Anita and then came back to win a 1 1/16-mile maiden race by 6 1/4 lengths on June 14, racing on the lead throughout.
“She’s sort of a grinder type,” Baffert said Wednesday during a national conference call. “She has speed, but a grinder. Her first race, I ran her long, she wasn’t quite ready. Her second race was really a strong race. We’ve always thought highly of her, it’s there. She cost a lot of money.”
Crystal Ball was a $750,000 2-year-old in training purchase by WinStar Farm. She is part of WinStar Stablemates Racing, a fan initiative that started 10 years ago and has turned into a racing syndicate. WinStar Stablemates leases the horses – 15 fillies – from WinStar and pays all the expenses outside the initial cost of the horse. Elliott Walden, president of WinStar, said the WinStar Stablemates has won five of its last six races, including the Iowa Distaff with Abounding Star.
Two of the wins have come from Paris Lights, who also is entered in the Coaching Club American Oaks. Paris Lights, a daughter of Curlin trained by Bill Mott, won a maiden race by 6 3/4 lengths on May 31 and came back to win a first-level allowance by 3 1/4 lengths on June 27. Both races were at 1 1/16 miles around two turns.
Mott also will send out Antoinette,
a daughter of Hard Spun who has wins on dirt and turf but is returning to the dirt after a third in the Grade 3 Wonder Again Stakes on June 20 at Belmont.
The favorite for the Coaching Club will be Tonalist’s Shape, who has won 6 of 7 starts, including the Grade 3 Forward Gal and, most recently, the Hollywood Wildcat Stakes on May 15.
“Everybody seems to think she’s much better with the blinkers and I do, too,” trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said Wednesday.
The CCA Oaks field, from the rail out, is Tonalist’s Shape, Antoinette, Altaf, Velvet Crush, Crystal Ball, and Paris Lights.
Decorated Invader goes longer
Decorated Invader is expected to face just four rivals in Saturday’s Grade 2, $150,000 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes for 3-year-olds at 1 1/8 miles on turf.
Christophe Clement, who trains Decorated Invader, also entered Gufo, who on July 4 won the Grade 3 Kent Stakes at Delaware Park. While Clement said “you should never be blasé about winning Grade 2 races,” he also said he is likely to hold
Gufo out for the Saratoga Derby on Aug. 15. However, Gufo was supplemented for a fee of $2,250.
Coming off two stakes wins this year, including a 4 3/4length score in the Grade 2 Pennine Ridge at Belmont on June 20, Decorated Invader figures to be a heavy favorite in the Hall of Fame. So much so, the race has been carded as the third on the 11-race program.
Decorated Invader will be trying 1 1/8 miles for the first time, but it’s a distance his connections seem confident he’ll handle.
“If I had to bet right now, I wouldn’t push all my chips in, but I’d push in a pretty significant portion of the stack that he’s going to be able to get the distance,” said Terry Finley, president of the West Point Thoroughbreds syndicate that owns Decorated Invader.
Also entered for the turf were Domestic Spending, Moon Over Miami, and Everdangerous. Money Moves was entered as a main-track only.
Correas runs two Friday
Over the last three Saratoga meets, trainer Ignacio “Nacho” Correas has two wins and three seconds from 10 starts, including a victory by Blue Prize in last year’s Summer Colony Stakes. Blue Prize went on to win the Spinster and the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
Correas, who is based in Kentucky, is back in Saratoga with two horses for Friday’s card and has two more for later in the meet, including the exciting 2-year-old Therideofalifetime.
Friday, Correas will run the Argentine-bred Joy Epifora in the $85,000 Shine Again Stakes for female sprinters at seven furlongs. Joy Epifora, a twotime Group 1 winner in Argentina in 2019, finished second in an off-the-turf allowance at Churchill Downs on June 21.
“I think she ran a good race, first race in America everything is different, the pace is different,” Correas said. “I’m very hopeful with her that she can be a graded stakes-caliber filly at some point.”
In Friday’s first race, Correas will run Bundibunan in a second-level allowance at 1 3/8 miles. Correas is taking blinkers off the son of Ghostzapper, who finished third in this same condition on June 19.
Later in the meet, Correas plans to run Therideofalifetime in the Grade 2, $150,000 Saratoga Special on Aug. 7. Therideofalifetime, a son of Candy Ride, won a six-furlong maiden race by 8 1/4 lengths at Keeneland last Saturday.
“I was expecting him to win. I think he’s a very good horse,” Correas said. “That was some kind of performance.”
Correas said Therideofalifetime came in from the Highlander Training Center in Texas “with a reputation of being a very good horse.”
Correas also plans to run Walk In Marrakesh in the Grade 3, $100,000 Lake George here Aug. 28. Walk In Marrakesh is likely to again face Enola Gay, who beat her a nose in last Saturday’s Grade 2 Appalachian at Keeneland.