CYPRESS — Opening day for thoroughbreds at Los Alamitos was an overdue day in the sun for one 6-year-old gelding.
None Above the Law came into the $100,000 Bertrando Stakes on a warm Saturday afternoon with a 19-race losing streak that stretched back nearly three years and included a last-place finish in this race in 2023.
Sent off as the 9-1 longshot in a field of four California-breds, None Above the Law and jockey Antonio Fresu sat far behind the front-runners and took advantage when they tired, winning by three-quarters of a length.
Love Sick Blues finished second, well clear of Don’t Fight the Fed and odds-on favorite Cowboy Mike. None Above the Law paid $20 to win. He covered the mile in a moderate 1:35.76.
“I never lost faith,” said trainer Jorge Periban, who saddled None Above the Law for the fifth time since claiming the horse for $50,000 from trainer Peter Miller at Santa Anita in February. “I checked all the records, and I said, ‘This guy’s got a lot of talent.’ I had a good feeling.
“Sometimes when you work hard, they come in.”
None Above the Law, a gray son of Karakontie who’s now owned by Hector Castrellon, has enough talent that his last win before this came in the Sept. 4, 2021 Del Mar Derby, a Grade II race.
Lately he had been running against better horses than he faced Saturday, being well-beaten in recent months by The Chosen Vron, Kings River Knight, Judge Miller, Johnny Podres and Mr Fisk.
Entering a softer race gave Periban hope. So did a fast, 58 2/5-second workout at Santa Anita since None Above the Law’s last race.
“He never did that before,” Periban said. “It surprised me.”
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Periban won with two of the three horses he entered on the nine-race card on the first of eight thoroughbred racing days at Los Alamitos.
Fresu won with both of his mounts.
“I let him get into a rhythm down the backstretch,” Fresu said of None Above the Law. “Then I swung him out for the stretch, and he showed his class.”
Cowboy Mike’s last-place finish disappointed betters who made the 4-year-old gelding a 9-10 favorite in the field reduced by the scratches of Tom Horn and Dick Best.
But Cowboy Mike’s trainer, Bob Baffert, did have a win with Dothraki, a 3-year-old son of Into Mischief and Vanquished making his racing debut. Dothraki and Kyle Frey fought to a neck victory at 2-5 odds in a 6 1/2-furlong maiden race. Dothraki was vanned off and reported to have bled.