Tapizar and Prayer for Relief to lock horns in the Grade 2 San Fernando Stakes at Santa Anita
The Grade 3 Sham winner, Tapizar, will kick start his 2012 campaign with a run in the Grade 2, $150,000 San Fernando Stakes, to be held at Santa Anita Park on 14 January, 2012. The race has reeled in a seriously tough line up, restricted for 4-year-old males, to run over a distance of 1 1/16 miles on dirt.
Steven Asmussen trained newly turned 4-year-old colt, Tapizar, is coming off a fifth place finish in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Churchill Downs on 5 November, 2011, and will meet the Bob Baffert trainee, Prayer for Relief, in the San Fernando Stakes.
With no Breeders’ Cup experience in his 3 years of racing, Prayer for Relief, who turned 4 in 2012, kicked off 2011 in emphatic style.
He went undefeated in his first 4 starts that year, starting off with a win in an allowance race at about 1 1/16 miles over Hollywood Park’s cushion track.
Introduced to graded company, Prayer for Relief, in his first ever graded stakes race, won the Grade 3 Iowa Derby convincingly. He switched to dirt for the first time in that race, and stayed on the surface ever since after 4 consecutive starts on synthetic surface.
The Kentucky bred son of Jump Start, out of mare Sparklin Lil by Mr. Sparkles, Prayer for Relief then bagged two back to back grade 2 races.
Stretched out in distance, the colt raced for the first time over 1 1/8 miles in the Grade 2 West Virginia Derby and won it in style, and then at the same distance, landed the Grade 2 Super Derby, defeating the likes of Awesome Bet in second, and Populist Politics in third.
On the other hand, Tapizar, has had his problems, injury wise.
He was sidelined until the fall, following surgery to remove the chip, when a knee chip was discovered and the colt got knocked off the 2011 Kentucky Derby trail.
Jockey Corey Nakatani will replace the injured Garrett Gomez to ride Tapizar in the San Fernando Stakes. “He’s very fast,” Nakatani said. “They’re going to have to pick their feet up to beat him. I worked him twice going six furlongs and he went well.”
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