OAK TREE : Super Staff Defeats Flawlessly by Nose to Win Yellow Ribbon

In a race with breeding that was a reminder of Triple Crown champions past, daughters of two of the most celebrated horses from the 1980s battled to the last jump in Sunday’s $400,000 Yellow Ribbon Invitational at Santa Anita.

Secretariat, the Triple Crown champion of 1973, and Affirmed, who became the last horse to sweep the three races in 1978, are the sires of Super Staff and Flawlessly, two of the best U.S. grass fillies.

Flawlessly, a 4-year-old daughter of Affirmed, could have clinched the Eclipse Award for distaffers on grass with a victory in the 1 1/4-mile Yellow Ribbon but lost by a nose to Super Staff. The two are expected to resume their rivalry in the 1 1/8-mile Matriarch at Hollywood Park on Nov. 29.

Super Staff has beaten Flawlessly twice, the first time by three-quarters of a length with an eight-pound weight advantage in the Las Palmas Handicap at Santa Anita three weeks ago. In the Yellow Ribbon, they were at 123 pounds each.

“When Juddmonte (Farms) sent her to me, they were not that high on her,” said trainer Ron McAnally, who should win an Eclipse for best older dirt female after Paseana’s Breeders’ Cup victory. “They just said, ‘We’re giving you a filly.’ ”

Now Super Staff, an English import, has three victories in four stakes starts in the United States, the only blemish being her sixth-place finish in the Beverly D Stakes at Arlington International.

With Kent Desormeaux riding his fourth winner of the day, Super Staff was able to cruise along on an uncontested, slow-paced lead and then held off Flawlessly at the wire. Flawlessly lagged in fourth place early, never more than three lengths off the lead. It was a development that her trainer, Charlie Whittingham, cited as the difference in the race, but a situation that her rider, Chris McCarron, said was impossible to avoid.

“I knew there wasn’t going to be anyone but me to go out with Kent’s horse, but my horse just didn’t have her usual speed today,” McCarron said. “I wasn’t going to force her to go up there if she didn’t want to, like last time. But she finished well. She’s all fight. I thought I had her measured in the stretch, but I was never sure.”

Desormeaux rode Super Staff for the first time in the Las Palmas, McCarron riding the filly in all of her other U.S. races. Desormeaux took the mount on Super Staff after Kostroma, who won the Yellow Ribbon a year ago, dropped out of Sunday’s running because of a lung infection.

Desormeaux is the leading U.S. rider with more than $12.2 million in purses.

“My filly saw the other horse coming before I did,” he said. “I stayed aggressive, and she just kept her head down and did the rest.

“When McCarron went to riding, I thought he had me. He went from a half-length off of us to right up to head-and-head really quick, but my filly just stuck her old head out and she tried so hard. She bobbled a little in the stretch, but it was just from trying so hard.”

Owned by Juddmonte’s Prince Khalid Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Super Staff earned $220,000, nearly equaling what she had made with six victories and two seconds in 11 other starts. Timed in 1:59 1/5, Super Staff was coupled with Polemic, a Juddmonte horse trained by Bobby Frankel, and paid $9.20.

Flawlessly, the 7-10 favorite, finished 3 1/2 lengths ahead of Campagnarde, another Whittingham starter, and a head farther back was Polemic in fourth place in the nine-horse field.

“Horses that can make the lead on a slow pace--even lesser horses--are always dangerous,” McAnally said. “The way the race set up, there was only one other horse that might have run with us. That was Marble Maiden (who finished fifth after being second at the top of the stretch), and she was off of the pace today.”

McAnally jokes about how Frankel, Juddmonte’s principal trainer, gets the first-stringers that the stable sends from Europe.

“Bobby got about 11 (including Jolypha, the 3-year-old filly who was third behind A.P. Indy and Pleasant Tap in the Breeders’ Cup Classic) the other day,” McAnally said. “I’ve got about six or eight, total, but I do manage to get a few from every bunch they send this way.”

Super Staff’s running style, with her head down, is similar to A.P. Indy’s.

“I’ve always liked horses that run with their heads down,” McAnally said. “I think it gives them more leverage. Any rider will tell you that they hate to ride horses when they put their heads up high. Look at the antique pictures of some of best horses. The better ones seem to be that way. They get their heads down and they try.”

Horse Racing Notes

Before Sunday, the shortest margin of victory in a Yellow Ribbon had been a half-length. . . . Super Staff is the first wire-to-wire Yellow Ribbon winner since Sabin in 1984. . . . Paseana will remain in light training, even though she’s not expected to run again this year. “(Owner) Sam Rubin told me that they sent John Henry to the farm when he was a 3-year-old, and he was so restless that he ran into a fence and almost killed himself,” trainer Ron McAnally said. McAnally won a horse-of-the-year title with John Henry when he was a 6-year-old in 1981, and they repeated in 1984.

Sea Cadet, scratched from the Breeders’ Cup Classic because of a minor leg injury, is a McAnally trainee who is scheduled to run in the Hawthorne Gold Cup later this month. . . . The Oak Tree season ends today with McAnally and Charlie Whittingham represented again in a stake, the Carleton F. Burke Handicap. Whittingham, who has won the Burke 11 times, will saddle Golden Pheasant, the 5-2 morning-line favorite, and McAnally’s hope is Fanatic Boy, the 4-1 third choice. At 3-1 is Missionary Ridge, trained by Bobby Frankel. McAnally has won the Burke more recently than Whittingham, with Ultrasonido in 1990. . . . Starting Wednesday, racing shifts to Hollywood Park.