ARCADIA, Calif. – The 2-year-old colt Intrepido ran to his name on Saturday at Santa Anita, where the Jeff Mullins trainee upset the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes, a race that had four runners trained by Bob Baffert.
Intrepido, which means fearless in Spanish, overcame a less-than-ideal trip to win the mile and a sixteenth race under jockey Hector Berrios. The American Pharoah was a Win and You’re In race for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
The winning margin was three-quarters of a length. Odds-on pacesetter Desert Gate finished second, a nose in front of Plutarch. Baffert trained the two-three finishers and five-six finishers Balboa and Kristofferson. Civil Liberty finished fourth.
Intrepido ($19.60), who was moving up in class from a front-running maiden win at Del Mar in which he got a perfect trip, overcame adversity to win the American Pharoah in a modest 1:43.67. The win was better than the final time.
Berrios initially wanted to set the pace with Intrepido, who broke sharply. But the favorite, Desert Gate, was quicker into the first turn. He was joined from the outside by Kristofferson. Berrios adjusted and took his horse back.
“I tried to go to the lead,” he said. “When that did not happen, he tucked third on the rail. It seems like a good position. It was not, because Kristofferson and Mike Smith did not allow Intrepido and Berrios to get through between rivals.
“Mike Smith, he opened, he closed, he opened, he closed,” Berrios added, repeating his words for emphasis. “I wanted to get outside.”
When his rival jockey did not allow that to happen, Berrios and Intrepido stayed inside and waited. It looked grim nearing the quarter pole when the field bunched and Intrepido was stuck. Berrios finally swung him outside into the stretch, but the colt’s first response was only deliberate. Then, inside the eighth pole, Berrios cracked Intrepido left-handed. He took off – or, as Berrios put it, "he fly."
Intrepido reeled in Desert Gate in deep stretch and powered home. It was Intrepido’s third career start and was all the more impressive considering he was moving up from a maiden win into a Grade 1 that did not unfold well for the winner.
His trainer was not surprised that Intrepido could overcome the journey.
“He just doesn’t care,” Mullins said.
It was compliment. Intrepido does not care about traffic or trouble. He simply powers home.
“We’ve done just about everything we can do with him,” Mullins said before explaining how he's trained Intrepido in the morning. “We put him behind, we put him in front, we’ve had him sit behind, come through on the rail. We’ve done everything with him.”
Odds-on Desert Gate, runner-up in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity, had no answer late under jockey Juan Hernandez.
“He was really comfortable. He gave me everything he had,” Hernandez said. “First time going a mile and a sixteenth probably was a little long.”
The winner is a ridgling sired by Maximus Mischief. He is owned by Ruben Islas and Michele Arthur, whose stable names are Irving Ventures and Dutch Girl Holdings, respectively.
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