ARCADIA — Richard Mandella was pleased with a long-awaited victory for Coffee in Bed at Santa Anita on Sunday.
Phil D’Amato saw his horses absorb the upset in this race and didn’t have a winner on Saturday or Sunday, but he might have had the best weekend of any trainer in the field thanks to what makes his Kentucky Derby colt.
Coffee in Bed, racing for the Hall of Fame trainer-jockey combination of Mandella and Mike Smith, bounced back from a poor effort last time out to win the $200,000 Grade II Santa Maria Stakes by a neck over Super Shine, trained by D’Amato. , while D’Amato’s favorite Desert Dawn finished third and Turnerloose fifth of seven.
“(I was) unable to train her like she should because of the weather,” Mandella said, explaining Coffee in Bed’s sixth-place finish, 16 lengths behind Sweet Azteca, in last month’s Beholder Mile.
The 4-year-old daughter of Curlin and Sumptuous won her first stakes and third race overall in nine starts for Spendthrift Farm, and paid $10.40 after covering 1 1/16 miles in a slow 1:45.16 .
D’Amato thought 7-2 Super Shine and 3-5 favorite Desert Dawn worked well. Super Shine didn’t change his lead in the sequence in the Argentine import’s first American start.
The defeat hasn’t dampened D’Amato’s enthusiasm for his biggest project yet.
Stronghold, his Santa Anita Derby winner and first Kentucky Derby qualifier, trained Saturday morning and covered 4 furlongs in 46 3/5 seconds, the colt’s fastest workout of 2024 and the co-fastest of the morning on the main slope of Santa Anita. Led by jockey Antonio Fresu, Stronghold overtook stablemate Shady Tiger in the streak. D’Amato said the colt was doing well Sunday.
“I came out of (training) in good shape,” the coach said.
D’Amato said he and Stronghold will travel to Louisville on Tuesday, and the Ghostzapper colt will get a feel for the track at Churchill Downs with a jog on Wednesday and a gallop on Thursday before training fully on Saturday or Sunday.
The Kentucky Derby will take place on Saturday, May 4.
Earlier Sunday, Johnny Podres added “stakes winner” to “World Series MVP” on the list of accomplishments next to that name.
The 7-year-old namesake of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers hero scored a $35.80 upset in the $100,000 Siren Lure Stakes with jockey Geovanni Franco for trainer Librado Barocio. It was Johnny Podres’ first victory in 37 career starts since debuting under trainer Steve Miyadi at Golden Gate Fields in 2019.
Passing First Peace and Lane Way, the gelding continued to disrupt the Santa Anita Stakes. After the favorites dominated Santa Anita during the first months of the season, they were beaten in nine of the last eleven races at stakes level.
California Daily Newspapers
