From Santa Anita Publicity
ARCADIA, Calif. (Dec. 30, 2015)–Favored California-bred Sunday Rules made short work of seven rivals in storming to a 4 ¼ length win in Wednesday’s $98,850 Kalookan Queen Stakes for fillies and mares at Santa Anita. Owned and bred by Nick Alexander, the 4-year-old daughter of Tribal Rule got 6 ½ furlongs under Mike Smith in 1:14.77.
Blessed with an abundance of natural speed, the Phil D’Amato-conditioned Sunday Rules broke running from post position five, shook clear of longshot Dancinthenightaway leaving the quarter pole and cruised home to her seventh win from eight lifetime starts.
Off at 4-5, Sunday Rules paid $3.80, $2.80 and $2.40.
“Once we jumped well and she got a clear lead, I felt confident that she was going to run well, but you also never know how fast they’re going to push you,” said Smith. “The track is playing really quick and although we were running fast, it was well within her scope and she was fine. When Dancinthenightaway came up to me around the quarter pole, I moved her over just a bit and she just took off. It was pretty impressive.”
Out of the General Meeting mare Sunday Dress, Sunday Rules, who picked up her third stakes win, banked $59,940, increasing her earnings to $444,840.
“As a baby, she was very unimpressive,” said Alexander, known to hundreds of thousands of Southlanders as the proprietor of Nick Alexander Imports which advertises on radio with the slogan “Nick Can’t Say No”. “She was lame as a yearling. Nothing to look at, she was a plain bay, but from the first time she breezed, (late trainer) Mike Mitchell told me ‘We’ve got something here. We’re not going to run her for a tag.’ And we never have…I’m really proud of her.”
Last early with Rafael Bejarano up, Kiss at Midnight was off at 5-1 and paid $3.80 and $2.80.
Lost Bus, who added blinkers with Fernando Perez aboard, sat third throughout at odds of 39-1 and paid $8.60 to show.
Fractions on the race were 21.52, 44.18 and 1:08.22.