Afterward Faiza destroyed a field April 8 under Flavien Prat’s lead in the $401,500 Santa Anita Oaks (G2), bringing her undefeated record to five, said coach Bob Baffert. showed how special this girl is.
“She’s just starting to get better,” said the Hall of Famer.
How much better could Faiza be? Her five races include four graded wins: 2022 Starlet Stakes (G1) at Los Alamitos and 2023 Las Virgenes Stock (G3), Santa Ysabel Stock (G3), and now 1 1/16 Oaks Stock, all at Santa Anita . Park. This is her biggest profit to date, 6 1/2 lengths.
“She was really sharp in the paddock today — the sharpest I’ve ever seen in her,” Baffert said. “Usually she just does enough to win, but I said to Prat, ‘You’ll probably have more horses today than you need.'”
Baffert’s not kidding. Faiza put in a perfect performance, taking the lead with a score of 91-1 Gila flew out of the six-half-mile lead into a distance of 1 1/16 mile. faiza and Clear Together they advanced on the second turn, overcoming the weary Gila, but they did not stay together for long.
Faiza leaves Clearly Unhinged behind, and Prat actually has so many horses And Tell Me Nolies a very talented two-time ranked champion who can’t do anything but run for second, half the distance ahead of third place Go watching around . Faiza galloped towards the rope in her hand, completing the distance with a score of 1:43.27.
Prat said: “She jumped out of the gate and into a vantage point, from there getting the job done.
For most of the year, such an impressive Santa Anita Oaks winner goes to Churchill Downs and May 5 Kentucky Oaks (G1), and Faiza is sure to be among the favorites. But horses trained by Baffert were not allowed to race at Churchill Downs this year and Faiza’s owner, Michael Lund Petersen, decided to keep Faiza with his trainer of choice and skip the Kentucky Oaks. She was not nominated for the race.
“You can’t have everything in life,” says Petersen. “If that’s the price I have to pay, I want to be loyal to the team I have. All the success I’ve had is because of that man. I think he’s the best horse trainer in the world.”
Petersen, who lives in Maryland, most recently traveled to Montana and flew from there to meet Faiza. This is the first time he has seen her race and only the second time he has seen her in person. He attended the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-old Promotion of 2022 where, with the help of Baffert’s sales team, including blood supply dealer Donato Lanni, he purchased Faiza for $725,000 from Paul Sharp’s shipment.
“She was bought in Baltimore – right in my backyard,” Petersen said.
Former Kentucky Governor Brereton C. Jones bred Faiza, the daughter of girvin –Sweet pistol via smart attack , in Kentucky. Jones sold the dirty car for $90,000 to Bet Racing at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Select Yearling Sale in 2021.
With Faiza without the Kentucky Oaks, Baffert said he will likely send her to the East Coast for her next race, possibly one of the top 3-year-olds on the New Circuit York.
Videotapes: Santa Anita Oaks (G2)
