Secret Circle Aims for Season-Ending Win

While plenty of connections would gladly take the 2014 season turned in by sprinter Secret Circle, the two-time Breeders’ Cup winner on Dec. 27 will look to address the “0” currently listed in the win column for this year.

Secret Circle has placed in four graded stakes this season, including three straight placings in grade I stakes races, but victory in 2014 has eluded the son of Eddington   to this point. He’ll try to take care of that in the $100,000 Midnight Lute Stakes (gr. III) Saturday at Santa Anita Park.

Mike Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman’s Secret Circle enters off back to back runner-up finishes to Private Zone in the Cigar Mile Handicap (gr. I) at Aqueduct Racetrack and Work All Week in the XpressBet Breeders’ Cup Sprint (gr. I) at Santa Anita. Secret Circle won the 2013 edition of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint and the 2011 Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Sprint.

Secret Circle is trained by Bob Baffert, who campaigned champion sprinter Midnight Lute for the same owners.

One of the six rivals awaiting Secret Circle in Saturday's 6 1/2-furlong test will be former claimer Seeking the Sherif, who will try to secure the first graded stakes win of his career.

About a year ago to the day, Seeking the Sherif was claimed for $12,500 by his current connections of trainer Ronald Ellis and owner Steve Zolotas from a Dec. 28, 2013 race at Santa Anita. Seeking the Sherif earned a dead-heat win that day to finish 2013 with a 2-for-2 seasonal record.

For his new connections, Seeking the Sherif won four of his first five starts in claiming, starter allowance, and allowance-optional claiming races before earning a grade I-placing with a third-place finish in his first career stakes start: the Bing Crosby July 27 at Santa Anita.

A 5-year-old Officer gelding, Seeking the Sherif earned his first stakes win in the Katella Stakes, setting a track record at Los Alamitos when completing six furlongs in 1:08.40. In his most recent start Seeking the Sherif finished eighth in the XpressBet Breeders’ Cup Sprint (gr. I) Nov. 1 at Santa Anita.

Since that effort, Seeking the Sherif has registered five workouts at Santa Anita, including a handy six-furlong move in 1:12 3/5 Dec. 20 that ranked second-fastest of 32 at the distance that day.

Formerly contested as the Vernon O. Underwood Stakes at Hollywood Park, the Midnight Lute will be run as the fifth race on a nine-race card Saturday.