ARCADIA, Calif. – Nothing Like You will cement her role as the top 3-year-old dirt filly in California if she defeats a small field Saturday in the Grade 2 Summertime Oaks at Santa Anita.
Only four are entered in the Oaks, a 1 1/16-mile dirt race with marginal recent relevance. Previously run as the Hollywood Oaks at Hollywood Park, the $200,000 race was moved to Santa Anita in 2014 and renamed the Summertime Oaks.
It’s been six years since the winner accomplished anything significant thereafter. Ollie’s Candy won the Summertime Oaks in 2018 and Grade 1 Clement L. Hirsch in 2019, but no Summertime Oaks winner since her won another graded race. The 2015 and 2016 winners Stellar Wind and Songbird both won multiple Grade 1 races afterward.
The decline of the Summertime Oaks mirrors the deterioration of this season’s local 3-year-old filly dirt division. Tamara, a star 2-year-old, will not race until summer at Del Mar. Chatalas, a graded winner last year, is gearing up for a turf campaign. Two-time graded winner Kinza does not have a recorded work since May 25; graded winner Kopion has shore shins and currently is sidelined.
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Nothing Like You filled the void. Trained by Bob Baffert, the three-time stakes winner faces three allowance winners. Baffert-trained Show Card goes long off decisive wins in maiden and allowance sprints. Mark Glatt-trained Jane Austen won both her starts, including a route last out. Sugar Fish won her last two for trainer Jeff Mullins.
Until her most recent start, Nothing Like You was not fast. Her career-high Beyer Speed Figure was a mere 79, earned winning the Grade 2 Starlet in December at Los Alamitos. But her eighth start, in the Grade 2 Santa Anita Oaks, was dazzling. She finally ran fast.
Nothing Like You won the Santa Anita Oaks by more than seven lengths, earned a 91 Beyer, and gave jockey Frankie Dettori his fifth of six consecutive victories on the April 6 card. Since then, the 4-for-8 Nothing Like You worked well, and she drew well (post 4 of 4). Juan Hernandez takes over for Dettori, who rides the Belmont Stakes undercard Saturday at Saratoga.
Jane Austen enters the Summertime Oaks as second fastest; she earned an 88 Beyer winning an allowance dirt mile three weeks ago. Antonio Fresu rides the Tapit filly for trainer Mark Glatt, but the filly who could pose the biggest threat is Nothing Like You’s stablemate.
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Show Card was a bust her first two starts, with excuses. She broke slowly and finished seventh in her debut, and then was compromised by a pace duel and finished third. She won both subsequent starts, sprint races, by margins of 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 lengths.
The ingredient that makes Show Card an upset candidate is speed. Show Card is quick enough to set the pace. If the Into Mischief filly gets comfortable on the front end, she could be long gone under jockey Mike Smith.
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