NEWS
All Saint scores milestone win on opening day at Santa Anita
Posted: Friday, December 26, 2008 9:31 PM
by Steve Schuelein
Two months had passed since the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita Park hosted the Breeders’ Cup World Championships. Temperatures had dropped 40 degrees from the 90s to the 50s, and the peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains sported a dusting of snow.
A crowd of 33,112 flocked to the Arcadia, California, track on Friday for the opening day of Santa Anita’s 72nd meeting. Fans picked up a free wall calendar and were regaled by a Mexican band inside one entrance.
The cool, sunny day was a particularly memorable one for trainer Triphon Dahl and owner Eduardo Gamez, who scored their first stakes victory with a $2,700 yearling purchase.
“I was dreaming for this,” said Gamez after All Saint won the $125,000 California Breeders’ Champion Stakes for two-year-olds by one length in 1:22.07 for seven furlongs.
Dahl, a 44-year-old native of Jamaica, and Gamez, a 31-year-old native of Mexico, had never had a stakes horse--let alone a stakes winner--before All Saint.
Gamez, who now lives in Pomona, comes from a family of farriers, which led to the purchase of the Skimming colt at the 2007 Barretts Equine Ltd. October mixed sale.
“My father, Pat, used to shoe horses for Paco Gonzalez when he trained the [All Saint’s dam Santa Patricia, by Free House],” Gamez said.
Dahl, who moved to California in 1989 and took out his trainer’s license in 2005, trains eight horses at Fairplex Park in Pomona, all for Gamez.
All Saint, who has won two of seven career starts, was ridden for the first time on Friday by Rafael Bejarano.
“I just told Bejarano to stay back,” said Gamez, who watched the gray or roan win at 7.60-to-1 odds and earn a $75,000 first prize.
“When we bought the colt for $2,700, we bought the mare separately for $1,000,” said Gamez, who is now dreaming big of the colt’s future. “He’s nominated to the San Rafael Stakes (G2) [on January 17] and Santa Anita Derby (G1) [on April 4].”
Steve Schuelein is a Southern California-based Thoroughbred Times correspondent
