By Santa Anita Publicity
ARCADIA, Calif. (Jan. 26, 2019)—Attentive to the pace throughout, Reddam Racing’s homebred Listing rallied four-wide turning for home en route to a measured half length win in Saturday’s $100,000 California Cup Turf Sprint Stakes at Santa Anita. Trained by Ben Cecil, the 3-year-old colt by Square Eddie got 6 ½ furlongs down the hillside turf course in 1:12.86.
One of four races restricted to California-bred or sired horses on the Saturday program, the Turf Sprint is part of the lucrative Golden State Series, which is sponsored by the CTBA.
Breaking sharply from post position five in a field six, Listing went straight to the front out of the gate, but was soon a comfortable fourth, about 1 ½ lengths off the lead after the first quarter mile and rallied strongly when called upon at the dirt crossing.
“It was a bit closer than I hoped, but he may have gotten a little tired. I didn’t give Mario any instructions. He knows the horse. He had a good effort last time down the hill and we had given him a little break prior to that, which he probably needed. Maybe now he’ll improve even a bit more.”
Second, beaten a nose by Irish Heatwave in a state-bred allowance down the hill Jan. 1, Listing was off as the actual 5-2 favorite and paid $7.00, $4.00 and $3.20.
Out Reddam’s Yonaguska mare Marquis Diamond, Listing picked up $60,000 for the win, increasing his earnings to $137,400. Today’s win marked his second stakes score and improved his overall mark to 5-2-1-0.
Takeo Square, who was ridden by Rafael Bejarano, was always forwardly placed and finished second, 1 ¼ lengths in front of Tivan. Off at 5-1, Takeo Squared paid $5.40 and $3.40.
Ridden by Kent Desormeaux, Tivan rallied from last for third money and paid $4.80 to show while off at 11-1.
Fractions on the race were 22.16, 44.52 and 1:06.89.