Gormley puts his head in front at the wire to win the Sham Stakes

The start of the West Coast preps for the Kentucky Derby couldn’t have produced a more rousing stretch duel than Saturday in the $100,000 Sham Stakes at Santa Anita. In the end, the more experienced Gormley pushed his head in front at the wire to beat favored American Anthem.

With most of the early Derby favorites campaigning back East, the Sham, run at a mile over a sloppy track, showed the always-fickle racing public that the West Coast has at least a couple of horses that deserveserious consideration.

“I was thinking. ‘C’mon, man, please,’” winning trainer John Shirreffs said about the stretch drive. “He’s a good horse for the distance and he’s got a lot of heart. It was just a matter of which was the better horse at that time.”

They are both very good 3-year-olds but drawing a long-range conclusion beyond that this early in the season would be foolhardy. It was Gormley’s third win in four races and second graded stakes win. It was American Anthem’s second race after winning a maiden special weight at Del Mar.

Gormley is close to qualifying for the Kentucky Derby. He was awarded 10 more Derby points to go along with the 10 he earned by winning the FrontRunner Stakes last year. Generally, a horse can make the Kentucky Derby with 25 to 30 points. American Anthem received four points for second.

Gormley broke sharply and took the lead as American Anthem used the rail to go to the front heading into the clubhouse turn. American Anthem maintained a length lead through half the backstretch when Gormley started to creep alongside him.

At the top of the stretch, Gormley took the lead, but American Anthem fought back to push in front with less than 100 yards to go. But jockey Victor Espinoza urged Gormley, running outside of Anthem, back to win by what was generously called a head. It looked more like a nose or as American Anthem jockey Mike Smith called it, “half a nose.”

Gormley paid $5.20, 2.80 and 2.40. American Anthem, trained by Bob Baffert, returned $2.60 and 2.20, while Big Hit paid $3.60 to show. The remainder of the field, in order, was Bird Is The Word, Term Of Art, Colonel Samsen and Blabimir.

Espinoza has measured confidence in the colt.

“I know he’s still improving, but I think he only gets better and better,” Espinoza said. “Hopefully, he gets a lot better, but with this race and his next, he has a lot of potential to keep growing.”

Owner Jerry Moss couldn’t stop smiling in the winner’s circle. Moss and Shirreffs teamed to race Zenyatta to her spectacular 19-of-20 win career. They also won the Kentucky Derby in 2005 with Giacomo.

“This type of thing never gets old,” Moss said. “I know he’ll go further than this. John’s doing all the right things, as usual. This was a beautiful horse race and the fans got a thriller.”

Shirreffs was unsure about Gormley’s next race.

“I always prefer to race a little more often than to space him, but it will be dictated by him,” Shirreffs said. “[You have to see] how he comes out of each race and how he does in the feed tub and all those things.”

The logical options are the Robert Lewis Stakes on Feb. 4 or the San Felipe Stakes on March 11. The colt is expected to stay at Santa Anita.

Other winners

There were two other stakes races Saturday at Santa Anita, both turf races that were moved to the dirt because of water on the turf course.

Watch This Cat bested the tiny four-horse field by 8 ½ lengths in the $100,000 Las Cienegas Stakes over 6 ½ furlongs. Richard Baltas was the winning trainer, with Corey Nakatani in the saddle.

Blue Tone won the $200,000 San Gabriel Stakes for 4-year-olds and older over 1 1/8 miles. He won by 1 ¼ lengths for trainer Bob Hess Jr., and jockey Kent Desormeaux.

Arrogate to work

Baffert has fallen victim to the weather as of late. With the $12-million Pegasus World Cup approaching on Jan. 28, the trainer is having trouble finding spots to train Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Arrogate.

Arrogate was originally scheduled to run Jan. 1 in the San Pasqual but was scratched because of the soggy track.

With more rain expected Monday, Santa Anita has offered Baffert the chance to work Arrogate between races Sunday. It would be a rare treat for a racing crowd to see the Classic champion work. Baffert will make a decision Sunday to work him in the morning if the track is acceptable or wait for a more dried-out track in the afternoon in front of the crowd.

john.cherwa@latimes.com

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