NEWS

Evita Argentina set for Santa Monica

Posted: Thursday, January 28, 2010 5:57 PM

EVITA ARGENTINA

Benoit & Associates photo

by Steve Bailey

Evita Argentina seems to relish seven-furlong races, and the four-year-old Candy Ride (Arg) filly will return to that distance as she tries to pick up her second Grade 1 victory of the Santa Anita Park meeting on Sunday in the $250,000 Santa Monica Handicap (G1).

Of Evita Argentina’s six career victories, four—all stakes races—have come at seven furlongs, including the La Brea Stakes (G1) (video) on December 26 in her most recent start for trainer John Sadler.

“That’s her distance,” Sadler said. “She won three stakes last year at seven-eighths, although this is tougher company and it’s for four-year-olds and up.”

Juddmonte Farms homebred Proviso (GB) is the co-highweight with Evita Argentina at 120 pounds in the field of 12.

The five-year-old Dansili (GB) mare has done most of her racing in France and had a couple of difficult trips in her two outings in the United States.

In her North American debut last October, she crossed the line first but was disqualified to second behind Mushka after swerving in the stretch of the Juddmonte Spinster Stakes (G1) at Keeneland Race Course (video). She then took the lead in the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Ladies' Classic (G1) on November 6 during the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita Park before fading to fourth behind Life Is Sweet.

Transferred to the stable of Bill Mott following trainer Bobby Frankel’s death ten days after the Breeders’ Cup, Proviso will be ridden for the first time by Rafael Bejarano as she shortens up in distance.
 
Diamondrella (GB) won three of her six starts last season, including two Grade 1 races—the Just a Game Stakes on June 6 (video) at Belmont Park and the First Lady Stakes on October 10 at Keeneland (video).

She is winless in her previous three starts, however, but did finish third in the Matriarch Stakes (G1) on November 28 at Hollywood Park. She enters off a fifth-place finish in the San Gorgonio Handicap (G2) on the Santa Anita turf on January 2.

Also entered are Grade 1 winner Gabby’s Golden Gal, who finished seventh in the La Brea in her previous start, and multiple graded stakes winner Tuscan Evening, who has won two of her past three starts in the Las Palmas Handicap (G2) on November 6 (video) and the Monrovia Handicap (G3) on January 3 (video), both at Santa Anita.

Steve Bailey is deputy news editor of Thoroughbred Times

Santa Monica H.