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Monday might be Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day—depending on where you celebrate—but Saturday is nothing less than Christmas in October for those of us who like their prime Thoroughbred competition spread across a bounty of states and time zones.
Quick twitch attention spans will be required to bounce back and forth between Aqueduct Racetrack in New York and Keeneland in Kentucky for 11 graded stakes. Then, as those are winding down, Santa Anita Park will pick up the beat with three more graded opportunities, led by 2-year-old hopefuls in the Chandelier Stakes (G2) and the American Pharoah Stakes (G1), both at a mile and one-sixteenth.
Since the Chandelier and the American Pharoah are run at the same track and distance hosting the corresponding Breeders’ Cup events four weeks later, their results must be taken seriously. Still, in terms of compelling theater, personal preference leans toward what should be a ripping good running of the Rodeo Drive Stakes (G2T) for fillies and mares at a mile and a quarter’s worth of firm ground.
Just to refresh, the Rodeo Drive used to be the Yellow Ribbon Invitational, a centerpiece of the Oak Tree Racing Association meet at Santa Anita for 37 years, through 2009. The Stronach Group terminated Oak Tree’s lease, after which the Yellow Ribbon was snapped up by Del Mar to be run during its summer meet. The luster is not quite the same, but the new Yellow Ribbon Handicap (G2T) has maintained a grade 2 rating, which is about as good as it gets for turf fillies and mares in California. There is only one grade 1 event, the Gamely Stakes (G1T) in the spring.
Closing Remarks won the Yellow Ribbon on Aug. 12, then came right back to take the John C. Mabee Stakes (G2T) on Del Mar’s closing weekend. The 5-year-old daughter of Vronsky (by Danzig) will be challenged on Saturday by Anisette , winner of the Del Mar Oaks (G1T), and the Kentucky invaders Didia , trained by Ignacio Correas IV, and Juncture , courtesy of Brad Cox.
Closing Remarks has quite the family tree. Her female side includes a mare who once sold for $534. Her dam never raced, dropped two foals, then was sold for a $5,000 song eight months before Closing Remarks made her first start. Her sire was a million-dollar yearling who never hit the board in a stakes. But he brought serious pedigree to the party and is also the proud father of California’s top sprinter.
Closing Remarks also has Carla Gaines in her corner, which is never a bad thing when it comes to nursing the best possible results from Thoroughbreds acquired without competition from Dubai sheikhs and Irish conglomerates.
Dancing in Silks , her 2009 winner of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1), was bought as a yearling in Canada for $21,401, which translated at the time to about 24,000 loonies. Bolo was a private purchase by Keith Brackpool’s Golden Pegasus Racing who Gaines raced sparingly to a grade 1 victory at age 7 and nearly a million dollars in earnings. Foxysox , a graded stakes winner on turf and synthetic, was a winless 2-year-old when bought at a Tattersalls autumn auction, while Nashoba’s Key, a multiple grade 1 race winner, was a product of owner Warren “Spud” Williamson’s boutique breeding operation.
Gaines also won half a dozen listed and black-type stakes with the High Brite mare Super High for her breeder, John Harris of Harris Farms, who also happens to be the man behind Closing Remarks. Since winning her first race in August of 2020—before an empty Del Mar grandstand during the season of Covid restrictions—Closing Remarks has made 21 starts, all but one in stakes competition.
Except for a break through the last half of the 2022 season, Closing Remarks has never strayed from the Gaines shed row.
“We detected what might have turned out to be a little knee problem, although she was perfectly sound,” Gaines said. “She’d been running hard, so she needed the break.”
At that point, in March of 2022, Closing Remarks had run 10 times in the previous 12 months. She returned on New Year’s Eve to run in six graded stakes during the winter-spring Santa Anita meet.
Closing Remarks after winning the John C. Mabee Stakes at Del Mar
“We gave her another little break after that to put on some weight, then she won those races at Del Mar with relative ease,” Gaines added.
Successfully coming from off the pace on the tight Southern California courses requires a large dose of luck to go along with ability. Closing Remarks has had her share of tough trips, though none worse than the 2023 Gamely, in which she clipped heels at the top of the Santa Anita stretch and was fortunate not to fall.
“That was awful,” Gaines said. “Luckily, she stayed on her feet.”
Joe Bravo had been a steady partner of Closing Remarks until he was replaced by Umbert Rispoli for her two wins at Del Mar, but Rispoli is sticking with Anisette for the Rodeo Drive. Oh, what to do? Gaines and Harris have settled for the circuit’s top cat, Juan Hernandez.
Trainer Carla Gaines hugs jockey Umberto Rispoli after Closing Remarks won the John C. Mabee Stakes at Del Mar
“Umberto got along really well with her, and you hate to break up a winning combination,” Gaines said. “But I’ve got the leading rider, and Juan was on her for her last breeze. She went really, really well, so he has a feel for her. And in this race, going a mile and a quarter, I think with her style she might be a little bit more forwardly placed, which should help when it comes to traffic.”
If Closing Remarks shows up in the Rodeo Drive, look for her to come right back in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf (G1T) on Nov. 4. Gaines won the 2007 Yellow Ribbon with Nashoba’s Key, then watched in horror as the mare was bound and gagged throughout the Filly and Mare Turf at Monmouth Park to finish fourth, full of a run she never used. The official chart comment was “bottled up on the rail.” If nothing else, Gaines deserves another shot.
“I know, right?” she said. “I know it will be a pretty salty spot. But it’s here on our home turf, so let’s see how she does in this race and hope we have a good reason to think about it.”
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