Another Favorite for Canani

Trainer Julio Canani hopes the $500,000 Citation Handicap, to be run for the 25th time this afternoon, doesn’t end the way last year’s race did.

The Canani-trained Ladies Din, the 5-2 favorite last year, was edged by Charge d’Affaires, a 14-1 shot who had shipped in from New York. The margin of victory was a nose in a race in which the first five finishers were separated by a little more than a length.

Canani will send out the favorite again today, but Val Royal will be even more heavily backed than Ladies Din was, and there is a lot more at stake for the 5-year-old son of Royal Academy.

If Val Royal, who won the Breeders’ Cup Mile a month ago in New York, can win today, and then again in three weeks in Hong Kong, he could wrest the Eclipse award as the nation’s top male turf performer away from Breeders’ Cup Turf hero Fantastic Light.

The Citation is one of two Autumn Turf Festival races on the card.

The other is the $200,000 Generous Stakes, which attracted nine 2-year-olds.

Jockey Alex Solis, who won the one-mile race last year with Startac, will try for a double with Red Briar.

Race of the day: The $70,000-added Safely Kept, which goes as the seventh, features a pair of Bobby Frankel-trained imports, Rolly Polly and Twin Set, against the unbeaten Cajun Flash, a speedy Bertrando filly trained by Canani. She will be making her first start on turf.

Who’s hot: El Cielo. The win machine broke the course record on Santa Anita’s hillside layout in the Morvich Handicap earlier in the month and will try to stretch out successfully in the Citation.

Who’s not: Soaring Music. Since being claimed for $10,500 on Jan. 12, the 5-year-old Kris S. gelding has done no better than one fourth-place finish in six starts. Most recently, he was dusted twice at Los Alamitos.

Exotically speaking: A pick-three using Well Known Act and Plum Good Day in the first, singling Fairway Foe in the second and using Evening Meeting, Delavallade and Zori in the third.

Winners: Previous Day/Meeting: 2/24. Money: Previous Day/Meet Total: $8.20/$128.80. Total money bet: $222.