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.”
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.