Selcourt Set for 2019 Racing Debut at Santa Anita
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Photo: Benoit Photo
Selcourt and jockey Tyler Baze after their victory in the Santa Monica Stakes at Santa Anita Park
Medallion Racing, Keith Abrahams, and Sandra Lazaruk's Selcourt will run in a race over the weekend of Jan. 12-13, but which race she participates in will depend on the weather.
Although the speedy Tiz Wonderful mare is entered in the $100,000 Las Cienegas Stakes (G3T) scheduled to run down the Santa Anita Park hillside turf course Jan. 12, trainer John Sadler said he won't be trying a new surface with Selcourt, a multiple graded winner on dirt.
With forecasts showing a 90% chance of rain at the Arcadia, Calif., track, Selcourt would only run in the 6 1/2-furlong Las Cienegas if it is moved to the main track. Otherwise, she will run in the 6 1/2-furlong Kalookan Queen Stakes on the dirt Jan. 13—a race she won last year by 7 1/2 lengths for her first stakes win.
"We're not experimenting with turf," Sadler said of Selcourt, who went on to win the Las Flores Stakes (G3) and Santa Monica Stakes (G2) and capped her 2018 season with a 12th-place run in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1). "She's going to be running on dirt this weekend, and Tyler Baze is going to ride her. That's the only thing we know 100%."
BALAN: Selcourt Speeds to Santa Monica Victory
Ideally, Sadler would like to keep Selcourt and his other Kalookan Queen/Las Cienegas entrant, Hronis Racing's Lady Suebee, separate, but the weather and track condition will determine his course of action.
"It was initially going to rain Saturday, then it moved to Sunday, and now it's back to Saturday, so we'll have to wait and see," Sadler said.
The rest of the nine-horse Las Cienegas field may be up in the air as well, but one mare stands out as a threat on turf or dirt.
A three-time graded winner sprinting on the turf, Gary Barber's Belvoir Bay fired one of the best performances of her 3-year-old season on the dirt in 2016 with a frontrunning, 1 1/4-length score in the Torrey Pines Stakes (G3) at Del Mar. Since then, the Peter Miller trainee has raced exclusively on turf, with five stakes wins, including the Senator Ken Maddy Stakes (G3T) at Del Mar in 2017, and the San Simeon Stakes (G3T) and Monrovia Stakes (G2T) at Santa Anita in 2018. Her last start came in the Oct. 12 Buffalo Trace Franklin County Stakes (G3T) at Keeneland, where she ran second to Chanteline.
BALAN: Belvoir Bay Makes the Grade in Torrey Pines
The only other entrants with winning dirt experience in the field are Peter Cantrell's Miss Southern Miss, who won her racing debut on the Santa Anita dirt in 2016 and also placed in the Sorrento Stakes (G2) at Del Mar that same year before moving to turf; and Lady Suebee, who is set for her first start for Sadler after nine races with trainer Chad Brown on the East Coast, where she had two wins and two seconds from four starts on the main track.
Santa Anita Park, Saturday, January 12, 2019, Race 6Entries: Las Cienegas S. (G3T)
PP
Horse
Jockey
Wgt
Trainer
M/L
1
1Compelled (FL)
Drayden Van Dyke
120
Thomas F. Proctor
4/1
2
2Fiery Lady (CA)
Heriberto Figueroa
120
Anna Meah
15/1
3
3Tesora (KY)
Kent J. Desormeaux
122
Michael W. McCarthy
6/1
4
4Belvoir Bay (GB)
Flavien Prat
124
Peter Miller
5/2
5
5Selcourt (KY)
Tyler Baze
120
John W. Sadler
2/1
6
6Miss Southern Miss (KY)
Rafael Bejarano
120
J. Keith Desormeaux
15/1
7
7Last Promise Kept (KY)
Aaron T. Gryder
120
Thomas F. Proctor
12/1
8
8Lady Suebee (KY)
Mike E. Smith
120
John W. Sadler
6/1
9
9Painting Corners (FL)
Joel Rosario
120
Peter Miller
3/1
