Accelerate rolls at Santa Anita
The Santa Anita Handicap, run for the 81st time a week ago Saturday, wasn’t the day’s most anticipated race, even at Santa Anita. That distinction belonged to the San Felipe Stakes, which featured a dramatic showdown between top three-year-olds Bolt d’Oro and McKinzie. The “Big Cap” still has its Grade 1 rating, but this year its purse was further reduced to $600,000. And most years the race is not the event it has been for most of its glorious history.
The Santa Anita Handicap’s problems begin with its place on the schedule. Not only does it have to compete for attention with the Kentucky Derby prep schedule, but now, sandwiched as it is between the Pegasus and Dubai World Cups, it also has to compete for horses with races whose purses are 10-16 times more lucrative.
With the scratch of the venerable Hoppertunity, Mubtaahij became the only Grade 1 winner in this year’s seven-horse field. The six-year-old Irish-bred led through seven furlongs before being overhauled by Accelerate, the 5-2 favorite, midway around the far turn.
The five-year-old son of Lookin At Lucky, relishing the off going, quickly distanced himself from Mubtaahij while turning back a brief challenge from Giant Expectations. The lead grew to 4½ lengths at the eighth pole and 5½ at the wire, with the field well distributed over 40 lengths behind him. Mubtaahij held second, with Fear the Cowboy a distant third.
It was the fourth graded win (and first Grade 1) for Accelerate, who has been out of the money only twice in 17 starts. The convincing victory moved him up a few slots in an oldermale division that is short on horses capable of winning big races at 9-10 furlongs.
WAITING ON THE FOURYEAR-OLDS
This was the first Santa Anita Handicap since 2003 that failed to draw a single four-year-old. In fact, outside of reigning threeyear-old champ West Coast and the under-appreciated Gunnevera — the twothree finishers in the Pegasus — not much has been heard from last year’s most prominent sophomores.
Some of them won’t be heard from again, at least not on the racetrack. Grade 1 winners Battle of Midway, Classic Empire, Practical Joke and Gormley have all moved on to the breeding shed. Threetime graded winner Irap is deceased.
It’s always a good thing for the sport when classic winners return to race at four.
Unfortunately, Always Dreaming, Cloud Computing and Tapwrit have accomplished little since their Triple Crown victories; all three are unraced since finishing off the board in the Travers seven months ago. Recent timed works have been reported for Always Dreaming and Cloud Computing, but plans for the three have yet to be revealed.
Additional stakes winners who enjoyed some success at three, but have yet to race at four, include Girvin (winner of the Haskell and Louisiana Derby), Good Samaritan (Jim Dandy) and McCraken (second in the Haskell). Irish War Cry (Wood Memorial) finished second in the Hal’s Hope Handicap on Feb. 24 in his 2018 debut.
Upcoming older-male division races include the New Orleans Handicap (Mar. 24), Oaklawn Handicap (Apr. 14), Charles Town Classic (Apr. 21), Californian (Apr. 28) and Gold Cup at Santa Anita (May 26).