By DRF.com
ARCADIA, Calif. (Apr. 24, 2014) – Marks Mine has developed a reputation as a top female sprinter in Northern California in the last two years, compiling four stakes wins. Her record at Santa Anita is not as strong.
A winner of 8 of 16 starts, Marks Mine is winless in three starts at Santa Anita, a trend she will try to reverse in Saturday’s $125,000 Spring Fever Stakes at Santa Anita. The Spring Fever, for California-bred fillies and mares at six furlongs, is one of five stakes for statebreds on Saturday’s Gold Rush card.
Marks Mine was third in the California Breeders’ Champion Stakes for 3-year-old fillies here in January 2013, her local debut. She was ninth of 11 in the Evening Jewel Stakes two months later, but emerged with an excuse.
[California Gold Rush: Get PPs, watch Saturday’s card live]
“She was buried on the inside and came up with a little virus afterward,” trainer Steve Specht said. “That’s about the only time she’s run a clunker.”
In the Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Sprint on the hillside turf course on Jan. 25, Marks Mine set the pace but hopped in the air when making the transition from the hillside turf course to the main oval. She finished second by a half-length to Ciao Bella Luna.
“She probably got herself beat,” Specht said. “She leaped coming onto the main track and went from being a half-length in front to a half-length behind. It might have cost her.”
In the Spring Fever Stakes, Marks Mine has drawn the rail in the field of eight. Jockey Frank Alvarado figures to use her speed.
“I’d prefer to be outside,” Specht said. “It forces me to send her. I’d like to have had the option of sitting off someone. It’s not like I’m going to take back from the inside.”
Our Pure Creation, who is making her stakes debut, could challenge Marks Mine early.
[DRF Live: Get live reports and handicapping insights from Santa Anita this Saturday]
Marks Mine has earned $363,854, all for breeders Larry and Marianne Williams.
“She’s a gutty, trying little thing,” Specht said. “She’s runs every time. She’s not invincible, but she’s not a horse that runs a big race and then runs a [bad] race.”
Marks Mine is one of two stakes winners in the field, along with Warren’s Veneda, who won the Cat’s Cradle Handicap at Hollywood Park in November.
The Spring Fever Stakes is the first start for Warren’s Veneda since a third-place finish in the Grade 2 Bayakoa Stakes at Hollywood in December. She will be a threat as a stalker.
The race is the first start of 2013 for Top Kisser, who was seventh in the Osunitas Stakes at Del Mar last July, her most recent start.