Bob Baffert’s Fighting Mad wins easily in Santa Maria Stakes at Santa Anita
ARCADIA — Fighting Mad, a 10-1 longshot, and jockey Abel Cedillo played catch us if you can Sunday at Santa Anita, and the other four horses were no match for the 4-year-old New Year’s Day filly in the $200,000 Grade II Santa Maria Stakes.
It’s not often, at least locally, that bettors get a Bob Baffert trainee at double-digit odds, but two of the better fillies on the grounds, Ce Ce and Hard Not to Love, were among the five-horse lineup and, on paper, appeared to be standouts.
Fighting Mad sped out of the gate in the 1 1/16-mile test, carving out splits of 23.25, 46.49 and 1:10.09 en route to a 3 1/4-length victory. She was never threatened in the stretch by Hard Not to Live, the 5-2 second wagering choice, or 3-5 favorite Ce Ce.
The final time was a rapid 1:42.12 as Fighting Mad won for the fourth time in seven starts, increasing her career bankroll to $294,008 with the $120,000 winner’s share of the purse.
Cedillo, who’s been extremely hot lately, said he had a lot of horse under him but wasn’t sure she could keep going.
“Jimmy (Barnes, a Baffert assistant) told me to send her to the lead, and when she broke, she broke like a rocket,” Cedillo said. “I was just trying to slow her down. I knew I was going a little fast, but she was just doing it on her own.”
The Santa Maria was Cedillo’s first time aboard Fighting Mad, and he said he watched replays of her past two races — a gate-to-wire victory in the Grade III Torrey Pines Stakes at Del Mar on Aug. 17 and a third-place finish in the Grade III Desert Stormer Stakes on May 17 at Santa Anita when she was ultimately disqualified and placed fourth.
“The first race I watched was with Joe Talmo (Torrey Pines), and she was just doing the same thing (as Sunday),” Cedillo said. “He didn’t budge on her and she won by eight. And the other race with Drayden (Van Dyke), she started looking around a little bit, which she did today, but in the stretch she just did it easy.”
Ce Ce, coming off two consecutive Grade I victories and with Victor Espinoza aboard, was fourth on the backside and moved into second around the turn for home, but she was no match for the winner and was passed for runner-up money by Hard Not to Love in the final sixteenth of a mile.
“I think the long post parade, it seemed like she let down a little, like maybe her energy dropped,” Espinoza said. “She was OK going into the first turn, then she wasn’t herself today.”
The long post parade was caused mostly by Hard Not to Love, who didn’t seem to want any part of racing, holding up proceedings as the field approached the gate. But she eventually was loaded and, rather than go to the front like she did in her first try around two turns last time in the Grade I Beholder Mile on March 14, was last through the first 6 furlongs before unleashing a closing kick under Mike Smith that saw the 4-year-old daughter of Hard Spun outfinish Ce Ce by 2 1/4 lengths.
It hadn’t been a good week for Baffert, starting with reports that two of his horses, including Kentucky Derby hopeful Charlatan, had tested positive for a banned substance following their respective races at Oaklawn Park on May 2. Baffert reportedly requested a second test on the samples, which could take a week or longer to come back.
Then on Thursday, it was discovered following a 4-furlong workout at Santa Anita that another of Baffert’s top 3-year-olds, Nadal, had suffered a left front lateral condylar fracture and had to be retired. He came out of surgery in good shape and his connections are reportedly considering a career for him as a stallion at Spendthrift Farm.
Things went perfectly for the Baffert barn on Sunday.
“She needed her last race and she had trained well coming into this,” Baffert said. “We’ve always been high on her, and today I told the jock to put her on the lead, that’s where she wants to be. She can be a little headstrong, but I could see turning for home, I knew she was gonna be tough to beat.”
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