When the speedball Candy’s Pleasure was scratched at the gate before
Saturday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Las Flores at Santa Anita, it might have been taken
as an inauspicious omen for the closers, and a positive for the Bob Baffert-trained
Mother Ruth, who figured to inherit the role of controlling speed. But it was
another Baffert runner, Gaines-Gentry Thoroughbreds and Serengeti Stable’s
homebred Gilded Gem, who turned conventional wisdom on its head with a rousing
last-to-first rally.
Ridden by Joel Rosario, Gilded Gem burst clear down the stretch to spearhead
an all-Baffert exacta with the barn’s third entrant, Subsidized. Only the Bruce
Headley-trained Silver Swallow foiled a Baffert trifecta by overtaking Mother
Ruth late for third.
In the early going, 8-5 favorite Mother Ruth sprinted to the fore and rattled
off splits of :21 4/5 and :44 2/5. Broken Dreams and Silver Swallow were giving
chase, while Subsidized bided her time in fourth and Gilded Gem was unhurried at
the tail of the five-horse field.
Mother Ruth increased her advantage to two lengths in midstretch, but by that
point, Gilded Gem had already begun to uncork a blistering move. Surging inside
the final furlong, she overwhelmed her rivals and drew off by 1 1/4 lengths.
Gilded Gem completed 6 1/2 furlongs on the fast track in 1:15 1/5 and returned
$7.20, $3.60 and $2.40 as the 5-2 second choice.
“I’ve ridden her before and I moved a little early last time,” Rosario said,
alluding to a narrow defeat in a recent allowance. “Today I took my time and she
responded well. She’s the kind of horse that wants to come from a little bit off
the pace. I just let her relax and find her stride.”
“I thought Mother Ruth was going to keep going,” Baffert said, “but she
started getting tired at the end. Gilded Gem likes to sit way back there.
Rosario fits her well. He’s a very patient rider — she comes running late and
ran them all down. The other filly (Subsidized) ran well to get up for second.
We’d have liked to be one, two, three, but we’ll take it at one-two.”
Subsidized garnered runner-up honors in a three-way photo, crossing the wire
a neck in front of Silver Swallow, who was in turn a head up on Mother Ruth.
Broken Dreams faded at the top of the stretch and brought up the rear another 12
3/4 lengths back.
Gilded Gem, who had finished sixth in last year’s Las Flores, earned her
first career stakes victory here, and advanced her record to 10-4-4-0, $223,800.
The five-year-old bay had finished second in her last three — the January 7
Kalookan Queen, the Grade 1 Santa Monica on January 30, and most recently a
February 25 allowance at this track and trip.
Out of the unraced Slew o’ Gold mare Golden Jewel Box, the Kentucky-bred is a
half-sister to multiple Grade 1 heroine Golden Ballet, herself the dam of Grade
1 Belmont Stakes winner Drosselmeyer and Grade 1-placed stakes scorer Stage
Luck.
Baffert identified the Grade 1 Humana Distaff, a seven-furlong affair at
Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day, May 7, as a likely objective.