ARCADIA, Calif. – Splendora did not have a speck of dirt on her after a demonstrative front-running victory in the Grade 1 B. Wayne Hughes Beholder Mile on Saturday at Santa Anita.
“She can go out on a date tonight, she never got dirty,” co-owner Michael Talla noted after Splendora ($2.20) crushed the Beholder by 5 3/4 lengths over runner-up Bless the Broken.
Talla was joking about Saturday night. The only date on the calendar for Splendora, trained by Bob Baffert, is a to-be-determined race on the East Coast.
“We’re going to go where the money is,” Talla said. “We’ll be headed back East; we don’t know where. The West is going to try and beat the East. We may get our lunch handed to us, but we’re gonna try.”
Might as well, because Splendora is running out of competition in California. Her romp in the Beholder was her fifth straight, and second Grade 1. She won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint last fall at Del Mar.
The winning margin was the largest in the Beholder since the race was shortened to one mile in 2016. Her 1:35.16 final time could produce a Beyer Speed Figure in the upper 90s, at least.
Om N Joy finished third, seven lengths behind Bless the Broken. Simply Joking and Nafisa completed the order of finish. Dazzling Move was scratched Saturday morning.
The outcome of the Beholder was never in doubt. She broke running, jockey Juan Hernandez put her on the lead, and she rolled through fractions of :46.77 and 1:10.31 before extending her lead through the stretch. Bless the Broken raced in second position throughout.
Splendora was owned solely by Talla her first 11 starts, including six wins. Following her victory Feb. 7 in the Grade 2 D. Wayne Lukas Stakes, Talla sold a 50 percent interest in the Splendora to Randy and Jenny Boyd. Randy Boyd is president of the University of Tennessee; he said Saturday was the first time he had been to Santa Anita.
Splendora, a 5-year-old by Audible, has won seven races and $1,160,800 from 12 starts. She has won her last two routes by a combined margin of more than 11 lengths. Baffert, however, was not willing to state whether Splendora would be a two-turn or one-turn mare this year.
“I haven’t mapped anything out for her next race,” Baffert said. The ultimate target, he said, is the Breeders’ Cup in the fall at Keeneland. Is it the Distaff, or Filly and Mare Sprint again? “I don’t have the answer,” Baffert said.
The runner-up finish by Brad Cox-trained Bless the Broken was a step forward from her comeback allowance win at Fair Grounds, while Om N Joy finished a creditable third while making her first start in more than four months.
“I’m thrilled, I love it,” Om N Joy’s trainer Aggie Ordonez said. “Great start to the year. She was the last one running. She’ll move forward from this.”
Non-starters
Dazzling Move, a Grade 3 winner/Grade 1-placed shipper from Florida, was scratched from the Beholder. Trainer Saffie Joseph texted she had a “scrape on a rear hind leg pastern.”
Dazzling Move, who shipped Tuesday to California, was the second Joseph runner to scratch out of a Saturday stakes at Santa Anita.
Skippylongstocking scratched from the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap early in the week. He threw a fit after being loaded on a plane. He was taken off the plane and did not ship.
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