By DRF.com
ARCADIA, Calif. (Oct. 16, 2024) – A sharp gelding on his way up meets a well-bred graded winner on his way back in the $80,000 Lure Stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita. The grass mile might be a two-horse race, or it might be a trap.
Recent runaway route stakes winner Man O Rose and Grade 2-winning comebacker Seal Team enter with clear attributes, yet both face challenges. Man O Rose, a California-bred stakes winner, has never run long on turf. Seal Team has not started in nearly a year.
Nine are entered in the Lure, a turf mile with conditions made to order for the favorites. The race is restricted to nonwinners of a stakes this year at a mile or longer other than California-bred. Man O Rose romped in a stakes for California-breds last month; Seal Team hasn’t raced since winning the Twilight Derby last year.
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The Lure field includes Grade 1 winner Exaulted, whose form regressed this year at age 7; and hard-trying gelding Sumter, winless since spring 2022. Stakes winners Mi Hermano Ramon, Flashiest, and War At Sea entered, along with allowance winners Sarwar and El Potente.
Jeff Mullins trains Man O Rose, the most improved California-bred of 2024. Though not quite level with Grade 1-winning California-bred The Chosen Vron, Man O Rose is getting closer. He won 5 of 7 this year, including the highest-rated turf sprint in California, earning a 104 Beyer Speed Figure in an allowance at Del Mar, followed by an eight-length crusher last month in a dirt route stakes at Los Alamitos.
Owned and bred by Bruce and Beverly Zietz, Man O Rose was nominated to the hillside California Flag Stakes last weekend at Santa Anita, but Mullins opted to keep him at two turns.
“We’ve been trying and trying to get him to go long, and I hate to” cut back to a sprint, he said. “Our initial plan after Los Alamitos was the Lure.”
Man O Rose scored an eight-length victory in the E.B. Johnston Stakes at Los Alamitos in his first career route. If he reproduces his dirt form on turf at Santa Anita, the Lure is his to win. Edwin Maldonado rides Man O Rose, a front-runner who must cope with pace rival El Potente.
Man O Rose is by Stanford, out of the Good Journey mare Kathleen Rose. He has seven wins in 12 starts, earnings of $319,840 and is coming off a win in the Sept. 14 E.B. Johnston Stakes, the fifth win in his last six starts.