Martial Law Pulls Away for Six-Length Victory in Santa Anita Feature Race

Favored Martial Law, making only his second U.S. start, took off with a furlong to go and won by six lengths over Just Bobby in Friday’s $45,000 allowance feature at Santa Anita.

Carrying 114 pounds and Martin Pedroza, Martial Law sat just off the pace of longshot Diablotain and Drouilly’s Boy, and moved into contention at the quarter pole. The 4-year-old colt made his big move approaching the eighth marker, putting away the early leaders and leaving the late runners with too much to make up.

In the race for second, Patrick Valenzuela got Just Bobby to the wire a nose ahead of Fernando Valenzuela’s mount, Pleasant Variety. Diablotain faded to fourth and Drouilly’s Boy to fifth in the field of nine.

Martial Law, trained by Julio Canani for Clover Racing Stable, covered the 1 1/16 miles in 1:43 2/5.

Martial Law, the 5-2 choice of the crowd of 16,560, paid $7.40, $4.60 and $3.40. He earned $24,750 with his third victory in 11 career starts.

Just Bobby paid $6 and $3.40, and Pleasant Variety paid $3.20.