ARCADIA — In the days before Forged Steel stepped onto the Santa Anita track to prove he’s a big-time horse for the course, the 4-year-old was the picture of a happy colt.
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Co-owner Michael Iavarone said he received video of Forged Steel in the stall that served as the Florida- and New York-based horse’s home away from home.
“He was rolling around. He was squealing,” Iavarone said. “I said, ‘If this horse doesn’t win, I don’t know who does.’”
If Forged Steel looked good in the little video on Iavarone’s smartphone, he looked even better life-size in the $300,000, Grade I Goodwood Stakes on the Santa Anita main track Saturday, making an early surge to the lead on the far turn with jockey Edwin Gonzalez and powering to a 1-1/4-mile victory.
Forged Steel paid $27.60 to win after covering 1-1/8 miles in 1:48.48, the third-fastest of the past 10 runnings of the Goodwood.
Second after a wide trip were Caldera and rider Paco Lopez, giving Saffie Joseph Jr. a 1-2 finish in the latest of the East Coast-based trainer’s run of stakes victories at Santa Anita, including Forged Steel’s 9-1/2-length win in the Grade II Hollywood Gold Cup in May.
That Gold Cup romp in Forged Steel’s California debut was followed by a return to his home base at Saratoga, where he finished a slow-starting fifth behind Phileas Fogg in the Suburban Stakes, and a trip back west to Del Mar, where he ran a horrible seventh to Knightsbridge in the Pacific Classic.
Assistant trainer Julia Ezra said a few days before the Goodwood that Forged Steel seemed happier and more focused in training at Santa Anita than he had at Del Mar. The gray son of Vekoma certainly looked that way Saturday.
Now the question is how Forged Steel, a winner of six of 21 starts, will take to the track at Keeneland, in Lexington, Ky., where he’ll be expected to make his first appearance next month. The Goodwood was a Win and You’re In qualifier for the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic, the main event of the Oct. 30-31 Breeders’ Cup festival to be held at Keeneland this year. Forged Steel gets an expenses-paid berth in the Classic.
Favorite and defending Goodwood champion Nevada Beach ran third, three lengths behind the winner. Mr. A.P. finished fourth, followed by Original Sin, Midnight Mammoth, Taif, Vodka Vodka and McAfee.
“It was a big effort off the layoff,” jockey Juan Hernandez said of Nevada Beach. “We will be ready next time.”
Forged Steel’s victory was the first in a Grade I stakes on the U.S. mainland for the Puerto Rico-born Gonzalez.
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The Goodwood was one of five graded stakes, several with Breeders’ Cup implications, on a 93-degree day at Santa Anita.
The thriller of the day was a photo-finish victory by Cabo Spirit ($16.40) and jockey Mike Smith, holding off an inside charge by El Potente in the Grade I City of Hope Mile to earn trainer George Papaprodromou’s 7-year-old gelding free entry in the Breeders’ Cup Mile.
“So many times he’s finished second or third, but he always runs a winning race,” Smith said. “It’s nice to see him get a W.”
Though the Grade II John Henry Turf Championship isn’t officially an expenses-paid qualifier for a Breeders’ Cup race, a strong victory by Atitlan ($3.80) and rider Umberto Rispoli showed trainer Richard Mandella enough to consider sending the 5-year-old to the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
It was Atitlan’s first win in three starts since he moved to Mandella after the death of trainer John Shirreffs in February.
“He has been a piece of cake,” Mandella said. “John Shirreffs laid the groundwork and created a good horse. “I just got to polish the apple, that’s all.”
In carrying Rispoli to the first of the jockey’s two victories Saturday, Sorrento Sky ($6.20) looked like a horse peaking at age 5 for trainer Phil D’Amato as he won by a length over the Mandella-trained duo of Sumter and Amorita in the Eddie D Stakes, his second straight Grade II-level turf sprint victory in three starts since being gelded.
“Today he just kept going, kept going, kept going,” Rispoli said of Sorrento Sky, who finished third in the Eddie D a year ago. “The credit goes to Phil, because he felt (Sorrento Sky) needed to be gelded, and the results came right away.”
The last of the five graded stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday, the Grade III John C. Harris Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, was the least dramatic. Little Opal ($4.40) and Emisael Jaramillo went straight to the lead at the start of the sprint down the grass hillside and were never threatened, winning clearly over Day to Day. Success in Little Opal’s first start at the stakes level kept her unbeaten in three starts.
“They sent her with a lot of accolades,” trainer Doug O’Neill said of breeder-owner Donald Dizney and Double Diamond Farm manager Garrett Smith, “and they were right on.”
The important stakes that pack the first two weekends of Santa Anita’s autumn season continue Sunday with Om N Joy favored (2-1 on the morning line) to deal Rabeeba (5-2) her first defeat in the Grade II Zenyatta Stakes for fillies and mares, and Maximum Bourbon (6-5) favored to reverse a recent photo-finish loss to Listenupshance (2-1) in the Grade II Santa Anita Turf Championship. The races award their winners free entry in, respectively, the Breeders’ Cup Distaff and Sprint.
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