CAL­I­FOR­NIA – Bar­ba­di­an train­er Saffie Joseph Jr and jock­ey Irad Or­tiz Jr. en­joyed a spec­tac­u­lar day at San­ta Ani­ta on Mon­day, se­cur­ing a grad­ed-stakes dou­ble af­ter ‘Skip­py­long­stock­ing’ tri­umphed as the odds-on favourite in the Grade II, US$200,000 Hol­ly­wood Gold Cup in the Unit­ed States.

Just 30 min­utes af­ter win­ning the Grade I Game­ly Stakes with ‘Be Your Best’, the dy­nam­ic duo re­turned to the win­ner’s cir­cle as the six-year-old Skip­py­long­stock­ing pow­ered to vic­to­ry in the 1 1/4-mile fea­ture.

The Flori­da-based horse, mak­ing his sec­ond San­ta Ani­ta start af­ter a third-place fin­ish in last year’s Breed­ers’ Cup Dirt Mile, de­liv­ered a thrilling per­for­mance un­der Or­tiz’s ex­pert ride.

Sent off as the 4-5 favourite, ‘Skip­py­long­stock­ing’ tracked ear­ly leader ‘Packs a Wahlop’ (10-1) and ‘Mid­night Mam­moth’ (12-1) for the open­ing six fur­longs.

As ‘Packs a Wahlop’ fad­ed on the sec­ond turn, ‘Mid­night Mam­moth’ took com­mand, reach­ing the mile mark in 1:35.51.

But Or­tiz had ‘Skip­py­long­stock­ing’ in per­fect po­si­tion, launch­ing a sweep­ing move around the far turn. The bay geld­ing surged past ‘Mid­night Mam­moth’ at the top of the stretch and dug deep to hold off a de­ter­mined late chal­lenge, win­ning by three-quar­ters of a length.

‘Ex­ten­sive’ (9-5), the sec­ond choice, fin­ished a dis­tant third, six lengths be­hind the run­ner-up.

Joseph was elat­ed that his charge was able to pull off the im­pres­sive vic­to­ry. “It was amaz­ing to get that Grade I win, but we didn’t want to go home with Skip­py get­ting beat. For him to win a his­toric race like the Hol­ly­wood Gold Cup was tru­ly spe­cial.”

CMC