Kayla Stra & Jennie C. Green in the winner’s circle with Lucius Antonius (yausser)

I was making my usual rounds this morning when I happened upon this excellent photo set over at flickr of Kayla Stra scoring a win, over Chantal Sutherland no less, Friday at Santa Anita. It was the 4th race, a $25k maiden claimer at 1 mile on the fake stuff.

Lucius Antonius, trained by the also lovely Jennie C. Green (in the white shirt) and owned by Gary Broad (no comment), “stepped to a slim advantage and set pace outside rival, roused and shook free in upper stretch, came in some later and just lasted under urging”, according to the chart.

But you can see it all here, Kyla mentally preparing outside the Jockey’s room, the team approaching the paddock, the pep talk, trying to psych out the opponents, breaking well, and holding off Chantal Sutherland in the stretch. Great stuff! And at least as interesting, if not more so, than anything else that went on in racing this weekend, no?

Speaking of which, check out Geno’s foray into “complaining”, well done and the more the merrier!

It also appears as though Channing Hill gets his first couple of mounts at Santa Anita on this Wednesday in the 5th & 7th.