Trainer Mike Mitchell is hoping a rider switch, a cutback in distance
and a break from Grade I and II competition in Sunday’s $85,000-added,
one-mile Adoration Stakes will bring a first win in 2011 for prized
6-year-old mare St Trinians.
St. Trinians has finished fourth in four straight Grade I or Grade II
starts since March – once by disqualification after crossing under the
wire first in the Grade II Milady Handicap at Hollywood Park.
Frustrating fourths to Mitchell, who bluntly says, “I’m trying to put
her in the winner’s circle” of the 6-year-old English-bred mare who gave
the great Zenyatta a major scare before a narrow loss in last year’s
Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park.
St Trinians will be undertaking an assignment shorter than 1 1/16
miles for the first time since December of 2009 and will have Joel
Rosario aboard for the first time since March of 2010. Chantal
Sutherland was up for a fourth-place finish of five in the Grade I
Clement L. Hirsch Stakes on Saturday, August 6.
“Joel knows her and has won three times on her, so I’m making that
switch,” Mitchell said. “If we can win, then I can think about Keeneland
(fall stakes) or whatever.”
The Adoration drew a field of eight.
MCANALLY HIGH ON ‘SUGAR’ FROM THE START
From the first moment he saw the yearling filly at Rancho Paseana,
Hall of Fame trainer Ron McAnally was smitten with Sugarinthemornng.
“She was in a field 100 feet away, and I liked her looks,” McAnally
said Friday morning. “There was something about her that made you think
she was going to be a good one.”
Now a three-year-old, the daughter of Candy Ride, California-bred and
owned by Stephen B. Weissman, will be seeking her third straight stakes
victory, and second of the Del Mar meeting, when she takes on five
rivals in Sunday’s $100,000 Torrey Pines Stakes.
Sugarinthemorning was a wire-to-wire, 3 1 /4-length winner of the
Fleet Treat Stakes on July 30 under Patrick Valenzuela, a follow-up to a
1 ½-length win from off the pace in the Manhattan Beach at Hollywood
Park on June 18. Valenzuela, who led the Pacific Classic from start to
finish last Sunday on Acclamation, has been aboard for the last six
starts for Sugarinthemornng.
“We’re keeping the same rider, which is good, and stretching her out (from seven furlongs to a mile),”
McAnally said. “We’ve been slowing her works down, so hopefully she
will rate and finish good and strong.
HOLLENDORFER WATCH
Hall of Fame trainer Jerry Hollendorfer remained positioned two away
from career win No. 6,000 when his lone starter, Capital Plan, failed to
hit the board in Thursday’s seventh race.
He has four scheduled starters today, three at Golden Gate Fields and
one at Del Mar. In order of probable post times they are: Sky High
Hatty (9-5) and Going For A Spin (2-1), first race, 12:45 p.m. at Golden
Gate Fields; Tio Vic (5-2), seventh race, 3:49 p,m. at Golden Gate
Fields and Sahara Sky (9-2), sixth race, 6:30 p.m. at Del Mar.