Does it make sense to try a $25,000 claimer in a Grade 2 stakes?
The scenario will occur on Saturday when the 8-year-old gelding Ghazaaly has his second career appearance in a stakes – and first in more than two years – in the $200,000 San Pasqual Stakes at Santa Anita. To gain a spot in the field of six, owner Joe Besecker paid $4,000 to supplement Ghaazaly to the San Pasqual when entries were taken on Monday.
“There is a lot of speed in the race,” trainer Doug O’Neill said on Wednesday. “I thought it might not be a bad gamble.”
Ghazaaly is already a winner at the current winter-spring meeting, scoring a two-length victory in a $25,000 claiming race at a mile on Jan. 19. Ghazaaly closed from fourth in a field of five for the win, ending a 15-race losing streak since May 2023.
“He put it all together,” O’Neill said.
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A winner of 3 of 23 starts, Ghazaaly was claimed for $40,000 by Besecker and O’Neill last August. The gelding’s first two starts for them were poor. Ghazaaly was eighth of nine after a wide trip in a $40,000 claiming race on turf two weeks after being claimed, and was pulled up in an allowance at seven furlongs at Del Mar in November.
“That was a head-scratcher,” O’Neill said. “He wasn’t feeling it that day. The rider took care of him and went easy on him.”
Emisael Jaramillo, who began riding at Santa Anita in December, won aboard Ghazaaly on Jan. 19 and has the mount on Saturday. Through Sunday, Jaramillo was tied for second in the jockey standings with Kazushi Kimura. They are one win behind Umberto Rispoli, who sustained a leg injury when he was unseated at Gulfstream Park on Saturday and is sidelined for an undetermined period.
Ghazaaly’s only previous start in a stakes was a fifth-place finish of seven in the Grade 3 Cougar II Handicap at 1 1/2 miles at Del Mar in July 2023. Ghazaaly was trained by Vladimir Cerin at the time.
The San Pasqual field does not include the leading older runners in California. Nysos and Nevada Beach, the first two finishers of the Grade 3 Laffit Pincay, Jr. Stakes on Dec. 28, are scheduled to be sent to Saudi Arabia for the $20 million Saudi Cup on Feb. 14.
The San Pasqual, which will be run at 1 1/8 miles on dirt, is led by Midnight Mammoth, a 7-year-old gelding who won a seven-furlong allowance race on Jan. 16 in his first start since August, and the well-regarded 4-year-old Getaway Car, who won the Sunland Derby last February but was last of six in an allowance at Del Mar on Nov. 30 in his first start in eight months.
Getaway Car has shown speed in his career, as has San Pasqual entrant Bartholdy, who disputed the pace in the Pincay Stakes before fading to finish third by 4 1/4 lengths.
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