Stormy Liberal Wins Third Straight Stakes

The $40,000 claim from October continued to pay dividends for Rockingham Ranch and trainer Peter Miller April 23 at Santa Anita Park.

Stormy Liberal, in his fifth start for Rockingham and Miller, won his third straight stakes race down the Santa Anita hillside turf course with an easy victory in the $75,000 Siren Lure Stakes. 

After stalking the leading pair of Ambitious Brew and Eddie Haskell, the Stormy Atlantic gelding angled to the outside and breezed past the frontrunners in the stretch. The winning margin was three-quarters of a length over Ambitious Brew, but jockey Norberto Arroyo never took the whip out to urge his mount.

"Turning for home, he was so full of run and I didn't want to bother anyone," Arroyo said. "That was my main concern. He actually felt more powerful today than he did last time (a nose win in the Joe Hernandez Stakes March 4). He loves the hill."

Before the Hernandez victory, Stormy Liberal won the Jan. 29 Clocker's Corner Stakes, also sprinting down the hillside, and finished second in the Dec. 26 San Simeon Stakes (G3T).

The leading pair set fractions of :21.62 and :43.38 through a half-mile before Stormy Liberal finished off the about 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:11.88.

Off at 4-5 in the four-horse field, Stormy Liberal improved his record to 6-6-1 from 19 starts and has $342,070 in earnings.