Freespool Finds His Stride and Wins Conejo Handicap

In a year’s time, Freespool got faster. The 4-year-old colt--actually, like all horses, he becomes a year older today--probably needed to be four-fifths of a second quicker Sunday as he won the $108,700 El Conejo Handicap at Santa Anita, becoming only the second horse to win the stake back-to-back.

On Jan. 2, 2000, Freespool won the El Conejo by 1 1/2 lengths, running 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:03 1/5. In Sunday’s 20th edition of the stake, trainer Ted H. West’s horse reached the wire in 1:02 2/5, with Chris McCarron again aboard. The margin was again 1 1/2 lengths as Men’s Exclusive finished second, 1 1/2 lengths better than Lexicon, who was the 5-2 favorite. The fourth betting choice in a field of seven, Freespool paid $9.20 for $2.

The only other back-to-back winner of the El Conejo has been To B. Or Not, who won the race in 1981-82, the first two years it was run. McCarron rode To B. Or Not for the second of those victories.

Freespool’s victory this time was more impressive because West hadn’t run him in seven months because he had beaten only one horse on grass in the Radar Ahead Stakes at Hollywood Park.

“He looked like he was tailing off, so we gave him a long rest,” West said. “He wasn’t even making the lead in his races, so when that happens, you know there’s something wrong. Maybe I should lay him off again and just bring him back in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.”

Freespool ended a four-race losing streak that started after his first El Conejo victory. He has won six of 16 starts and is only a few dollars short of $300,000 after adding Sunday’s $65,220 purse, yet this race was his first victory in a graded stake. The El Conejo was bumped up from an ungraded race to a Grade III this year.

Freespool ran fast early, clicking off fractions of 21 2/5, 43 4/5 and 56, but no one could catch him through Santa Anita’s 900-foot stretch.

“With this horse, there’s not much strategy,” said McCarron, who won the El Conejo for the seventh time. “He’s just fast and you hope he gets away from the gate cleanly. From that point, I literally just try to stay out of his way. With a horse like this, a rider is more of a hindrance than with a horse that needs a lot of aggressive riding. He is so fast, and there’s no rating him, so you just have to hope he conserves enough energy.”

When McCarron breezed El Conejo last Tuesday, the colt clicked off five furlongs in 56 3/5. That’s faster than the track record for a race at Santa Anita.

“After that work, he was hard for me to pull up,” McCarron said. “He never did that [before]. He was done when he hit the wire, so maybe he’ll be able to carry his speed a bit farther.”

Freespool had had only three official workouts before Sunday, and at one point West was unsure his colt would be fit enough for the El Conejo.

“When he worked three-eighths [in a blazing 34 1/5 on Dec. 13], he galloped out in 58 flat,” West said. “That’s when we thought he might have a chance to make the race.”

If Freespool runs in the $200,000 Palos Verdes Handicap on Jan. 28, he’ll be asked to carry his speed six furlongs against Kona Gold, the Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner and last year’s Palos Verdes winner when Freespool was third.

“I think Kona Gold’s the best sprinter we’ve had in the last decade,” West said.

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Three races later, Laffit Pincay won a claiming race aboard Running Thunder. That gave him 200 wins in a year for the first time since 1991. Then Pincay won the last race, on Climate, for a 201 total.

Pincay needed six wins in the first five days of the Santa Anita meet to reach 200. He won three races last Friday, on his 54th birthday.

“I found out [Saturday] night that I was one away [from 200], so I came pumped up,” Pincay said. “The last three years, I have had a lot of energy and confidence in myself.”

Notes

Trainer Ron Ellis saddled three winners. . . . Always The Lady, ridden by Corey Nakatani, crashed the stakes ranks by winning the filly division of the California Breeders’ Champion Stakes. Trained by Don Warren, Always The Lady had won twice before, but her best finish was a second in three stakes starts. Warren’s Whistle was second, beaten by 2 1/2 lengths, and Thewholebag ran third. Favored Rosanda had an unlucky trip and finished 10th in the 11-horse field. . . . Manndar, eighth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf and fifth in the Citation Handicap since running second to Chester House in the Arlington Million in August, is the 5-2 morning-line favorite in today’s San Gabriel Handicap.