Captain Scotty Impresses in California Debut

Any concern Gary Barber had before Captain Scotty's Southern California debut went out the window quickly Jan. 26 at Santa Anita Park.

A private purchase by Barber and partner Wachtel Stable out of a 6 3/4-length debut win at Laurel Park Dec. 3 for owner/trainer Tim Ritchey, the 4-year-old Quality Road  colt now trained by Peter Miller almost immediately opened up a clear lead and cruised to a 5 1/2-length score in the six-furlong, first-level optional-claiming allowance.

"That made me feel a lot better," Barber said of the early speed shown by Captain Scotty. "I hated the (inside post)."

Under jockey Flavien Prat, Captain Scotty had a three-length lead through the first quarter in :22.53, then let the field advance to cut the margin to 1 1/2 lengths through a half in :45.71. Any hope for the challengers was quickly lost, however, as Captain Scotty kicked away again at the top of the stretch and finished off the six furlongs in 1:09.83 on what has been a fairly slow Santa Anita main track.

Prat took several looks at the Santa Anita infield video board to make sure there were no rivals making a run, but never even cocked his whip. Miller stablemate Big League held off Coils Gold to take the place honors.

"Flavien never hit him once, and there were some decent horses in there, too," Barber said.

Barber did not disclose the details of the deal to acquire the colt, or why it took so long for the bay to make it to the races late in his 3-year-old year.

"We were satisfied (with what the previous connections told us). We thoroughly investigated,"  Barber said. "He had very good (Ragozin) and Thoro-Graph sheet numbers, and he ran a pretty decent Beyer (speed figure) first time out. He's a serious horse.

"We'll take each race bit by bit. I'd love to run through the condition of the second allowance, and then we can go hunting for bigger game."

Captain Scotty was a $75,000 purchase by Ritchey out of the 2015 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale. He was bred by John and Martha Jane Mulholland in Kentucky, out of the multiple stakes-placed Aggressive Chief mare She Is Raging.