Sweet victory for Antifona in the Sweet Life (Ernie Belmonte/Past The Wire)
Mike Willman/Santa Anita Press Box
ARCADIA, Calif.— Shortening up out of two one-mile turf events, John Sadler’s French-bred Antifona rallied big off the turn for home and cruised to a solid two-length score in Sunday’s $100,000 Sweet Life Stakes at Santa Anita. Ridden by Hector Berrios, Antifona got about 6 ½ furlongs down the hillside turf course in 1:12.91.
In a race in which none of the participants had ever competed down the hill, Antifona broke from post position 10 in a field of 11 sophomore fillies and was content to lag far back early, as she was next to last, about nine lengths off the lead leaving the half mile pole.
Approaching the dirt crossing at the top of the lane, Berrios angled off the rail and was seven-deep turning for home. From there, she easily outran front-running Dial a Friend a sixteenth out in a very impressive effort.
An ungraded stakes winner going seven panels over soft turf in her final French start on Sept. 16, she was a close fourth in her U.S. debut, the Grade III Jimmy Durante Stakes Dec. 2 at Del Mar and was most recently a troubled fifth here in the ungraded Blue Norther Dec. 29.
Off at 10-1 today, she returned $22.00, $8.00 and $5.40.
Owned by Hronis Racing, LLC, Antifona is now 10-3-2-0 overall and with today’s winner’s take of $60,000, she increased her earnings to $120,867.
Ridden by Kazushi Kimura, Irish-bred Zona Verde was in behind a wall of horses a furlong out, but shifted to the outside and smoked home to be second in a huge effort. Off at 7-1, she paid $8.20 and $6.00, while finishing 1 ½ lengths behind original third place finisher Alluring.
Ridden by Umberto Rispoli, Alluring was full of run leaving the furlong pole, cut to the inside for racing room but in so doing, took the path of Elegant, who was forced to check sharply at the rail, nearly unseating Juan Hernandez, who blew both of his irons and was thus eased from there.
Following a steward’s inquiry, Alluring was disqualified to 10th, just behind Elegant.
As a result, the original fourth place finisher, Visually, was placed third. Off at 49-1, Visually, who was ridden by Kyle Frey, paid $15.40 to show.
Fractions on the race were 21.60, 43.88 and 1:06.37.
Racing resumes with a five-day week on Thursday. First post time for a nine-race card is at 12:30 p.m.
$100,000 SWEET LIFE STAKES QUOTES
JOCKEY QUOTES
HECTOR BERRIOS, ANTIFONA, WINNER: “Last time out we kind of got boxed in so this time I tried to come out a little bit. I knew there was a lot of speed in the race, so I just let her relax and when she started to make her move by herself, I left her alone. Then I thought I’m going to make a move to the outside so she can finish. When I made my move, she responded without a problem.”
TRAINER QUOTES
JOHN SADLER, ANTIFONA, WINNER: “She was waiting for this kind of a set up. Her first trip, she got a slow pace and was wide, the second trip she was blocked, so she just needed to get a clear run which she got today.
“She had a lot of experience in Europe, I’m sure she’s run left, right and uphill, so I thought that might have been to our advantage today.”
OWNER QUOTES
KOSTA HRONIS, ANTIFONA, WINNER: “It’s the first time that she got a chance to run, she’s been blocked the last two times. After her last race Hector got off the horse and said, ‘My fault we should have won, I’ll win the next one.’ So he actually predicted this, so good for Hector.”
NOTES: The winning owner is Hronis Racing, LLC.
