Baffert Continues Los Alamitos Dominance With Bast
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Photo: Benoit Photo
Bast inches away from Donna Veloce to win the Starlet Stakes at Los Alamitos Race Course
Although Santa Anita Park is the home base for trainer Bob Baffert, Los Alamitos Race Course is his house.
On the showcase day of that track's December Thoroughbred meet, the Hall of Famer won five consecutive races, including the $200,000 Los Alamitos Futurity (G2) with Thousand Words and the $300,000 Starlet Stakes (G1) with Bast—the third straight year he has swept the two stakes races for juveniles. It was Baffert's 12th victory in the Futurity and sixth in the Starlet—races that were contested at Hollywood Park before its closure in 2013.
Neither horse was favored, and Bast, in particular, was overshadowed entering the Starlet, off at 2-1 odds behind 1-5 favorite Donna Veloce, who finished in front of her when they ran third and second, respectively, in the Nov. 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) at Santa Anita.
This time, it was Bast who got the better of her rival. With jockey Drayden Van Dyke hustling her to make the lead, she held a narrow lead over Donna Veloce with fractions of :22.80, :47.22, and 1:11.99—and turned aside a stretch challenge from the favorite to prevail by a half-length. She raced 1 1/16 miles in 1:43.36 on a wet track rated good (sealed), returning $6.40 to her backers.
Picking up a grade 1 placing in third was K P Dreamin, 12 lengths behind runner-up Donna Veloce. Gingham and Roadrunner's Honor completed the order of finish in the five-horse field.
"I didn't say anything to Drayden. He just rode her the way he felt," Baffert said. "We knew that Donna Veloce was going to be really tough. She gutted it out to beat a really nice filly like that. I knew it was going to come down to the end like that."
The Starlet gave Bast her third grade 1 victory following scores in the Del Mar Debutante Stakes (G1) and Chandelier Stakes (G1). She is the only 2-year-old of either sex to have won so many prestigious races in North America in 2019, accomplishments that will likely make her an Eclipse Award finalist as outstanding 2-year-old filly.
Unbeaten British Idiom, who conquered Bast and Donna Veloce in the Juvenile Fillies after winning the Darley Alcibiades Stakes (G1), is widely expected to be crowned champion.
Bast and Donna Veloce are daughters of Uncle Mo . The first foal out of the Arch mare Laffina, Bast was bred in Kentucky by BlackRidge Stables and was a $500,000 purchase last year by Baoma Corporation from Taylor Made Sales Agency's consignment to The Saratoga Sale, Fasig-Tipton's select sale of yearlings in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. She has made $732,200 while compiling a 3-1-1 record from five starts. Baoma bought her California Chrome half brother for $325,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale this season. Laffina's Pioneerof the Nile filly brought $430,000 as a weanling from a partnership that signed as Giant Elf Bloodstock at The November Sale, Fasig-Tipton's fall mixed breeding stock sale in Kentucky.
With the Starlet a qualifying race as part of the Road to the Kentucky Oaks, Bast picked up 10 points to improve her total to 24, second only to British Idiom with 30.