Baze Has 7th 400-Win Season

Jockey Russell Baze won three races at Golden Gate Fields on Monday, reaching the 400-win mark for an unprecedented seventh consecutive year.

Baze’s third win, aboard Living Dreams in the seventh race, was his 400th. His streak started in 1992 with 433 wins, and since then his annual totals have been 410, 415, 448, 415 and 420. No other jockey has had more than three 400-win years.

Baze, 40, has won 6,432 races in a career that started in 1974 at Yakima Meadows in Washington.

“I think other people were more worried about [getting 400] than I was,” Baze said. “But I’m glad I did it. The good lord willing, I hope I’m around next year to try to do it again.”

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At Santa Anita, Brave Act ran one of the fastest San Gabriel Handicaps to win the 1 1/8-mile grass stake by 2 3/4 lengths over Mash One, with Fragrant Mix, the 4-5 favorite and Brave Act’s stablemate, finishing fifth.

Brave Act reached the wire in 1:46 3/5, missing Wretham’s record, set in 1989, by two-fifths of a second. Goncalino Almeida rode Brave Act to win his first stake in Southern California since scoring with another Ron McAnally trainee, Toda Una Dama, in the Santa Margarita Handicap on March 8.