Mild Upset for Grand Appointment

It took less than three weeks for co-owners Pablo Suarez and Doug O’Neill, Santa Anita’s leading trainer, to get their investment and then some back on Grand Appointment, a 7-year-old Unbridled horse they claimed for $32,000.

Making his first start for his new connections, Grand Appointment scored a mild upset in the $137,875 Sensational Star Handicap on another rainy day in Arcadia on Sunday. The winner’s share of the purse was $82,725.

In providing jockey Pat Valenzuela with his second stakes win of the weekend -- he had won the San Luis Obispo on Saturday with favored License To Run -- Grand Appointment won for the third time in a row, beating 5-2 second choice Red Warrior by 1 3/4 lengths. He ran the 6 1/2 furlongs in the race restricted to California-breds in 1:14.56.

The 9-2 third choice, Grand Appointment now has six wins in 17 starts. His previous five wins had come for breeder Golden Eagle Farm and trainers Bruce Headley and Jeff Mullins.

Red Warrior, the upset winner of last month’s Sunshine Millions Sprint, finished a half-length in front of 5-1 fourth choice Excessivepleasure, O’Neill’s other starter. Bilo, the 2-1 favorite, finished seventh.

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Royal Place, the second-longest shot in a field reduced to five with a switch from the turf to the dirt because of continued rainy weather, rallied to win the $101,100 Daytona Handicap on Sunday at Santa Anita.

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Ray Sibille, who retired in July after riding 4,264 winners during a career that spanned 35 years, has been selected the 56th winner of the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award.

Other riders voted, and Sibille defeated four other nominees -- Rick Wilson, David Flores, Casey Lambert and Richard Migliore -- for an award that honors jockeys whose “careers and personal character reflect positively on themselves and the sport of thoroughbred racing.”

Sibille, 52, whose biggest victory came aboard Great Communicator in the 1988 Breeders’ Cup Turf, will receive the award in a winner’s circle ceremony next month at Santa Anita.

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Papua, the 6-5 favorite, made it three consecutive wins in the $80,975 Hollie Hughes Handicap with an easy decision over pacesetter Storm Boot and four others on Sunday at Aqueduct.

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Cape Hope, the 3-1 second choice, remained unbeaten on the turf with a come-from-behind victory in the $60,000 Gaily Gaily Stakes on Sunday at Gulfstream Park.