SANTA ANITA : Champ Stormy But Valid Heads Las Flores Field

Defending champion Stormy But Valid heads a field of seven distaffers in the Grade III Las Flores Breeders’ Cup Handicap at six furlongs Saturday at Santa Anita. The race offers $75,000 in added money plus an additional $25,000 from the Breeders’ Cup Fund for eligible horses.

Stormy But Valid, a 5-year-old mare, won the race last year while carrying 117 pounds, but will carry high weight of 121 this year. The only other repeat winner in the 38-year history of the race was Chop House in 1963 and ’64.

Stormy But Valid, trained by Brian Mayberry for Jan, Mace and Samantha Siegel of Beverly Hills, has won nine of 21 starts and earned $446,088. She returned from a four-month layoff to win an allowance race at Hollywood Park on Dec. 2.

“She’s awful good right now,” Mayberry said. “After the Ballerina at Saratoga in August, we laid her off until Hollywood Park and pointed her for these races at Santa Anita.”

The Las Flores lineup, from the rail out: Classic Value, Chris McCarron, 116 pounds; Wakia, Gary Boulanger, 113; Covell, Omar Berrio, 107; Stormy But Valid, Gary Stevens, 121; Inverness Lady, Jorge Velasquez, 113; Devil’s Orchid, Russell Baze, 116, and Hasty Pasty, Julio Garcia, 116.

Classic Value won the Budweiser Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs in 1989. Wakia won the Rancho del Charro Handicap at Bay Meadows in her last start Dec. 23. Devil’s Orchid accounted for the June Darling Stakes at Del Mar.