Heavily favored Liberation and jockey Juan Hernandez had to work for the filly’s first stakes win, edging 4-1 Cecilia Street and Diego Herrera in the $100,000 Soviet Problem Stakes at Los Alamitos on Sunday.
Cecilia Street challenged front-running Liberation first on the far turn, and again after slipping a length behind in mid-stretch, but couldn’t get by the John Sadler-trained daughter of Omaha Beach and Ponytail.
Liberation, who paid $2.60 after winning by a half-length, had finished third in three previous tries at the stakes level and was the only horse with stakes experience in the 1-mile race for California-bred 2-year-old fillies.
Long shot Tiger Lady finished third.
“Around the quarter pole she kind of lost concentration and slowed down a little bit, but I think she was waiting for company,” Hernandez said of Liberation. “Once (Cecilia Street) came to her, I started working on her and she came back and won the race.”
With the two-week Los Alamitos thoroughbred meet already half-over, Kazushi Kimura and Armando Ayuso lead the jockey standings with four wins each. Kimura rode Bob Baffert’s Consequent to victory in Saturday’s $200,000, Grade II Starlet Stakes.
Sadler, Baffert, Steve Knapp and George Papaprodromou are tied atop the trainer standings with two wins.
