Intriguing Bertrando matchup

One is an 8-year-old veteran that does everything very well – run long and short, turf and dirt. The other is a 4-year-old dirt-sprint neophyte that is very fast.

They meet for the first time Saturday in the $100,000 Bertrando Stakes at Los Alamitos, and while stakes winner Brandothebartender is the field’s most accomplished horse, streaking sprinter Scary Fast Smile is the fastest. Can he stay the one-mile trip?

“He’s got such a high cruising speed, I can’t see where distance is [an issue], particularly on that racetrack,” Scary Fast Smile’s trainer, Mark Glatt, said. “But until they do it, I don’t believe it.”

Until recently, few believed Scary Fast Smile would be in a stakes race. He was a five-start maiden with modest figures, but recent improvement has been dramatic. He won backto-back sprints by a combined margin of nearly 16 lengths, and is likely to set the pace in the Bertrando, a Cal-bred race that is his first around two turns.

Five were entered in the Bertrando, race 4 Saturday. In addition to Scary Fast Smile and Brandothebartender, the field includes sharp allowance winner Desmond Doss, deep closer Luvluv, and stretch-out sprinter Tom’s Surprise.

Scary Fast Smile has been a work in progress since Glatt and partners claimed him for $50,000 from a third-place debut in May 2020. He finished third again for Glatt, then underwent corrective throat surgery. When he returned last fall, he was not much faster than before.

Glatt said the throat procedure “worked well, but sometimes those horses take a while to get confident they can get their air.”

Scary Fast Smile also had a recurring foot problem the trainer said “must have been bothering him a lot more than he let on.”

After three straight runnerup finishes, Scary Fast Smile finally popped an abscess, his foot healed, and he romped in his next two starts, against maidens and Cal-bred allowance rivals. Scary Fast Smile will stretch out Saturday in peak form. His rider is Tyler Baze.

He must hold off Brandothebartender, a 44-start veteran who has won three stakes and earned $468,001 since he was claimed for $40,000 in a six-way shake in August 2018.

“He doesn’t know he’s 8 years old and I’m not going to tell him,” trainer Craig Dollase said, laughing. “He’s one of those horses who loves to train and is a pleasure to be around. He doesn’t have to take his track or his surface with him.”

Brandothebartender won the Sensational Star and Crystal Water stakes this past spring at Santa Anita, and finished second in a turf sprint stakes at Golden Gate two weeks ago. The five-furlong race was designed as a prep for the Bertrando. “It’s a quick turnaround, but he’s proven he can do that, so I’m not concerned,” Dollase said.

Umberto Rispoli rides Brandothebartender, third after stumbling at the start last year when the race was called the Soi Phet. It returns to its original name, the Bertrando, on Saturday.