ARCADIA, Calif. – First in a summer squeaker, then an autumn runaway, Tenma was a better 2-year-old filly last season than Vodka With a Twist.
Actually, Tenma was better than most. A three-time graded winner, Tenma remains the leader of the California filly division, having defeated Vodka With a Twist by a nose in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante and by more than 10 lengths in the Grade 2 Starlet at Los Alamitos.
The new year is the same as the old year. Tenma is heavily favored in the Grade 2 Santa Anita Oaks on Saturday. Meanwhile, the 1 1/16-mile Oaks is a mere starting point for Vodka With a Twist. It’s her first start in four months.
Tenma and Vodka With a Twist, runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, top the Oaks, race 4 on the Santa Anita Derby undercard. Six are entered, but Look Forward will scratch to run Monday in the Grade 1 Ashland at Keeneland. Others in the Santa Anita Oaks, which offers qualifying points for the Kentucky Oaks, are stretch-out sprinters Silent Law and No Bad Beats; Madame Secretary won a maiden race last out.
Tenma, who has won four of five for trainer Bob Baffert, will make her first start since she won the Grade 2 Las Virgenes on Feb. 2. Baffert gave the light-bodied filly a short break to gear up for spring.
“She’s doing well, she’s worked well,” Baffert said. “She does her best running at the end; she has tactical speed. I think she wants to go a mile and an eighth.”
Tenma may get that chance in the Kentucky Oaks if she runs well Saturday under jockey Juan Hernandez. Tenma will have to catch stablemate Silent Law, a 2-for-4 stakes winner running long for the first time. Silent Law has an unusual way of moving, with her head low to the ground.
“She’s an anteater, she looks like a bloodhound,” Baffert joked.
Whether she can carry her speed two turns while hounded by No Bad Beats is debatable. Martin Garcia rides Silent Law.
Vodka With a Twist is making her first start since finishing a distant third behind Tenma in the Starlet at Los Alamitos on Dec. 7. It was the seventh start of Vodka With a Twist’s campaign. “It was one too many,” trainer Phil D’Amato acknowledged.
D’Amato kept Vodka With a Twist at Santa Anita during her four-month break.
“I’ve got her as fit as I could possibly get her off workouts,” D’Amato said. “I think there’s going to be room to improve off this race. I’m hoping she gives us a really good performance, and then we can see about the Kentucky Oaks, or go another route.”
Vodka With a Twist, whose rider is Antono Fresu, won the Debutante at Churchill Downs last June and finished second in three major races at Del Mar – the Grade 3 Sorrento, Debutante, and BC Juvenile Fillies.
D’Amato said high-strung Vodka With a Twist has settled in at age 3. “As a 2-year-old early on, she was speed-speed-speed,” he said. “Now she’s much more tractable.”
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