Winner of several stakes When Toupie enters the $100,000 Las Cienegas Stakes (G3T) at Santa Anita Park on January 12, she will be returning to the location of her biggest triumph to date. Flavien Prat, who will be riding the filly in Sunday’s race, saw the newly turned 4-year-old shine in her first trip on the distinctive downhill turf course of Santa Anita, sprinting to a 1 1/2-length gate-to-wire score.
Toupie swung a 5-wide turn for home and finished in fourth place, which was better than it seemed, in the Nov. 8 Autumn Days Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack, after her 103 Equibse Speed Figure-earning total. Uncle Mo’s daughter, trained by Graham Motion for the Wertheimer and Frere breeders, ought to break from the three post with a better trip as the speed to the inside in the field of 10 older fillies and mares.
Three horses, including two winners over the downhill turf course in Miss Lizzy and Just Nails, will be saddled by local trainer Doug O’Neill in the 6 1/2-furlong Las Cienegas. Five-year-old Miss Lizzy, the daughter of Classic Empire, finished second to Ag Bullet in the Monrovia Stakes (G3T) but went on to win the Mizdirection Stakes in May. She finished fourth in the Swingtime Stakes at Del Mar and has lost both of her runs after the Mizdirection. In October, Button Stable and George Hicker’s Just Nails won a second-level allowance race and came within a second of the downhill turf course record.
