Homebred Spectator Takes on the 'Big Girls' in Sorrento

The $200,000 Sorrento Stakes (G2) Aug. 5, the first graded stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Del Mar, provides a little bit of everything.

There's the massive sale purchase in Phoenix Thoroughbred III's Diamondsandpearls, who went for $1.7 million and is trained by Bob Baffert.

There's the blowout stakes winner in Rockingham Ranch's Surrender Now, who followed up her two-length debut win in June with an eight-length romp in the Landaluce Stakes at Santa Anita Park July 2.

There's the former claimers, Spirit of Shanghai and Midnight Summer, who both impressed enough during their debut victories to earn a shot at the big time. There's the out-of-town invader, Terra's Angel, who will look to spoil the locals' party with an upset. There's even a maiden in the field, Dancing Belle, who has shown improvement in each her last two starts.

There's also a homebred, who won just as impressively as the rest, but did so with out any pre-race hype.

Off at 9-1 in her debut against a field of nine others June 23 at Santa Anita, you could almost see Rick and Sharon Waller's Spectator figure things out on her own during the five-furlong race.

With Jaime Theriot asking early from post 9, the daughter of grade 1-winning sprinter Jimmy Creed   seemed to be struggling to keep up entering the turn, but quickly the jockey found out he didn't need to ask much more. Spectator picked up the bit on her own in the turn and began to advance on the leaders.

At the top of the lane, the Phil D'Amato-trained filly began to kick clear. Spectator appeared to figure out what racing entailed and ran away from the field to win by 5 1/4 lengths.

"To me the hardest post to win from going short at Santa Anita is the far outside and she was the nine or 10. Because the turn starts right there, you're basically starting in the parking lot out there," D'Amato said. "For her to break like she did—from five-wide to four-wide, to three wide behind horses—it was a very good schooling. When Jamie asked her at the top of the lane, she gave it to him.

"With her style the 6 1/2 furlongs shouldn't be a problem. She's facing winners for the first time and both (Surrender Now and Diamondsandpearls) are really nice fillies, but she's done nothing wrong in the mornings. She's never got outworked and she's always trained like a good horse, but you don't know until they do it.

It's also a point of pride for D'Amato to start a homebred against some of the top juvenile fillies on the West Coast.

"It's good for the game," the trainer said. "It goes to show that a homebred for a smaller breeding operation can compete with the big girls, whether it's in a maiden race or down the line in a stakes."

The likely favorites, however, have earned that distinction.

Diamondsandpearls sped to the wire 6 1/4 lengths ahead of the competition to break her maiden in her debut under a hand ride from jockey Mike Smith, and will retain the Hall of Fame rider in the Sorrento.

BALAN: $1.7 Million Diamondsandpearls Dazzles in Debut

"She ran like we hoped she would," Baffert said after the race. "With that price tag, everybody wanted her. Now we know why everybody wanted her."

Surrender Now was no slouch at the sales either—she went for $220,000 at Barretts in March—and humbled a field of six in the Landaluce.

LARUE: Surrender Now First Stakes Winner for Morning Line

"I told (Rockingham owner) Gary (Hartunian) this is the best 2-year-old filly I've been around in 15 years, since I was prepping babies for Golden Eagle Farm," Miller said after the 5 1/2-furlong stakes.

Sorrento S. (G2)

Del Mar, Saturday, August 05, 2017, Race 6

• 6 1/2f
• Dirt
• $200,000
• 2 yo Fillies
• 4:33 PM (local)

PP	Horse	Jockey	Wgt	Trainer	M/L
1	1Surrender Now (KY)	Flavien Prat	123	Peter Miller	9/5
2	2Spectator (KY)	Jamie Theriot	120	Philip D'Amato	5/2
3	3Dancing Belle (KY)	Kent J. Desormeaux	118	J. Keith Desormeaux	12/1
4	4Terra's Angel (KY)	Sasha Risenhoover	118	Dallas E. Keen	20/1
5	5Spirit of Shanghai (KY)	Joseph Talamo	118	John Brocklebank	12/1
6	6Diamondsandpearls (KY)	Mike E. Smith	120	Bob Baffert	8/5
7	7Midnight Summer (KY)	Edwin A. Maldonado	118	Peter Miller	15/1