Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Prat set up for another big opening day
Jockey Flavien Prat has had some memorable afternoons on opening day of the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting. Prat, 28, won two graded stakes on opening day in 2016, was winless in 2017, won two graded stakes in 2018, and missed the big day last year because of illness.
Prat won the Mathis Brothers Mile in 2016 on Conquest Enforcer and again in 2018 with River Boyne. On Saturday’s opening day at Santa Anita, Prat is booked to ride Scarto in the $200,000 Mathis Brothers Mile and is scheduled to have mounts in the other five stakes.
According to his agent, Derek Lawson, Prat as of Sunday is booked to ride Collusion Illusion in the Grade 1 Runhappy Malibu Stakes for 3-year-olds at seven furlongs, Sharp Samurai in the Grade 2 San Antonio Stakes at 1 1/16 miles for 3-yearolds and up, and Beguiled in the $75,000 Lady of Shamrock Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at a mile on turf.
Lawson said Prat will have a mount for trainer Chad Brown in the Grade 1 American Oaks for 3-year-old fillies at 1 1/4 miles on turf and for trainer Bob Baffert in the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at seven furlongs. Those mounts were to be finalized when entries for the 11-race program were taken Monday.
Prat has been the leading rider at the last two Santa Anita winter-spring meetings, when statistics were kept from opening day through the final day in mid-June. Prat led the standings for the entirety of the 201617 and 2017-18 Santa Anita meetings, when statistics were kept in two segments – from opening day to early April, and from mid-April to closing day in late June or early July.
Through Saturday, Prat led all riders in Southern California at all meetings with 184 wins. Abel Cedillo was second with 137 wins, with Umberto
Rispoli in third with 124 wins.
Prat will ride Scarto for the first time in the Mathis Brothers.
Owned by the Little Red Feather Racing partnership and Marsha Naify, Scarto has won 4 of 9 starts and earned $159,788. Scarto won the American Fabius Stakes at Gulfstream Park last February in his final start for trainer Amador Sanchez.
Trained by Mike Puype since the spring, Scarto was second in the Grade 2 Twilight Derby at 1 1/8 miles on turf at Santa Anita in October, and was sixth in the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby at 1 1/8 miles on turf at Del Mar on Nov. 28, finishing 3 1/2 lengths behind Domestic Spending. Smooth Like Strait, a leading candidate in the Mathis Brothers Mile, was second by a head.
“It was a super tough race,” Puype said Sunday. “Those were really good horses. This race comes up a little easier than the race at Del Mar.”
The Mathis Brothers field includes the multiple stakes winner Field Pass, who was third in the Twilight Derby and won the Grade 3 Ontario Derby on Nov. 21 at Woodbine.
Riders fined for whip violations
Jockeys Tyler Baze, Abel Cedillo, Ruben Fuentes, Juan Hernandez, Jessica Pyfer, and Eduard Rojas were fined earlier this month by Los Alamitos stewards for excessive use of the whip. All were cited for using the whip more than six times in a race, exceeding the limit of a rule implemented on Oct. 1.
Hernandez was fined $1,250
– $500 for an infraction on Dec. 12 and $750 for a violation the following day. Fuentes was fined $1,250 – $500 for an infraction on Dec. 12 and $750 for an infraction on Friday.
Baze and Pyfer were fined $750 for violations on Dec. 13, while Rojas was fined $750 for a violation on Dec. 11. Cedillo was fined $1,000 for a violation on Friday, his third such penalty in the last 60 days.
◗ Trainer John Sadler was fined $1,000 after Higher Power tested in excess of the permitted level of the analgesic bute after a workout Aug. 10 at Del Mar. Higher Power won the 2019 Pacific Classic and was fourth in the race this year. Higher Power was last of 10 in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 7 at Keeneland in his final start. He will begin a stallion career in Kentucky in 2021.