Arcadia, CA (Sports Network) – Sunday’s dominating victory by Game On Dude in the San Antonio Stakes at Santa Anita reestablished the gelding as the leading handicap horse on the West Coast. The 6-year-old’s 6 1\/2-length win places him squarely as the favorite for the Santa Anita Handicap (Big ‘Cap) on March 2.<\/p>\n
“This is an extremely talented horse, he might even be better this year. I’ve never ridden him last year but I ran against him a few times. The feeling he gave me today was even more so than when I first rode him,” said Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith after the San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Trained by Bob Baffert, Game On Dude will be returning to the Big ‘Cap after a year’s absence. He won the race in 2011, but last year was sent to the Dubai World Cup where he finished a disappointing 12th. The gelding won last year’s San Antonio prior to Dubai.<\/p>\n
Co-owned by Joe Torre, Game On Dude has won 11 of 23 career starts for more than $3.25 million. The San Antonio is the horse’s second win following last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic in which he finished seventh as the 13-10 favorite.<\/p>\n
Game On Dude closed his 2012 season with a victory in the Native Diver Handicap at Hollywood Park. Prior to the Breeders’ Cup he won the Awesome Again Stakes after a second in the Pacific Classic and wins in both the Hollywood Gold Cup and Californian.<\/p>\n
“He just seems to be such a great competitor,” Torre said. “Again, I’m not an authority on horses. I sit next to Baffert whenever I can, and when he told me at the top of the stretch that he’s got plenty left, I sort of relaxed a little bit.”<\/p>\n
The gelding’s career mark at Santa Anita is an impressive six wins in seven starts for $1 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arcadia, CA (Sports Network) – Sunday’s dominating victory by Game On Dude in the San Antonio Stakes at Santa Anita reestablished the gelding as the leading handicap horse on the West Coast. The 6-year-old’s 6 1\/2-length win places him squarely as the favorite for the Santa Anita Handicap (Big ‘Cap) on March 2. “This is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}