Santa Anita Park wraps up it’s 71-day winter/spring meet this weekend with the traditional closing stakes event, the Grade II San Juan Capistrano Handicap, a marathon 1 ¾ mile race on turf for 4-year-olds and up.. The run will go as the seventh race on the nine-race card on Sunday. Seven runners are expected to go post-ward for the event in Southern California.
The early favorite for the race is expected to be the Bob Baffert-trained Sky Kingdom, who most recently scored a victory in the Grade III Tokyo Cup, a 1 ½ mile event on the Santa Anita dirt. It was the first time the Empire Maker colt had raced beyond 1 1/16 miles, and pulled away at the quarter-pole to win by a comfortable 3 ¾ lengths. With the victory, Sky Kingdom upped his lifetime record to 4 wins and a 3rd-place finish in 9 lifetime starts. California Dreaming!
Interaction, who finished second in two recent Grade II events, is a top contender expected in the 7-horse field. Fire with Fire, trained by Neil Drysdale who won this race twice in 2010 and 2012 with Bourbon Bay will also compete in the shadows of the San Gabriela mountains. After this weekend’s events, racing resumes at Santa Anita in September. Included in the fall meet will be the exciting Breeder’s Cup World Championships on November 1 and 2, 2013.
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