A longshot no more, So Happy wins San Vicente Stakes at Santa Anita

ARCADIA — The victory by So Happy in the San Vicente Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday offered a quick lesson in how fast prospects can change for good horses as they turn from 2 years old to 3.

Just 50 days after starting his racing life as a 38-1 longshot in a maiden sprint at Del Mar, So Happy is 2 for 2 and suddenly a horse of interest on the Kentucky Derby trail after scoring an upset win in the $200,000, Grade II San Vicente Stakes with Mike Smith riding for trainer Mark Glatt.

The time of 1:21.12 for 7 furlongs made this the fastest San Vicente since 2016, when Nyquist ran 1:20.71 on his way to winning the Kentucky Derby. So Happy, who paid $7.80, rallied from third to win by two lengths over Buetane, a 1-2 favorite for trainer Bob Baffert. They were followed in by Acknowledgemeplz, Thirsty Rebel and Greenwich Village in the five-horse race.

So Happy is a son of 2015 champion sprinter Runhappy and the allowance-level sprint-winning mare So Cunning, herself a daughter of Blame, who beat Zenyatta in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Classic

How much potential does Glatt see in So Happy as Santa Anita’s races for 3-year-olds get longer, from the 1-mile Robert B. Lewis Stakes on Feb. 7 to the 1-1/16-mile San Felipe on March 7 and the 1-1/8-mile Santa Anita Derby on April 4.

“Well, we know he’s a really good sprinter,” Glatt said with a laugh. “He’s pretty push-button, he’s not speed-crazy, he does get some stamina off the bottom side (of his pedigree). I think we’ve got to try him around two turns. How many horses really want to run a mile and a quarter (the distance of the May 2 Kentucky Derby), no matter how they’re bred? Not a whole lot of them.

“He’s a racehorse, he’s a runner. When you get horses like that, they overcome a lot of things that people don’t necessarily think they can do.”

Glatt is one of California’s leading trainers, but his more than 1,300 career victories didn’t include a graded stakes win by a 3-year-old on dirt until now. He seemed to enjoy hearing congratulations as he walked with reporters from the winner’s circle to the saddling area for the next race.

“It’s always exciting to get a good horse, it’s exciting to win a big race, it’s exciting to beat Bob Baffert,” said Glatt, who bought So Happy for $150,000 at a 2-year-olds auction for owners Robert Norman of Alabama and Hans and Ana Maron of Arizona. “But tomorrow we start over. We’ll start by seeing how he (So Happy) comes back, then start planning for the next go-round, hopefully.”

Smith sounded optimistic about So Happy’s stamina.

“I was really happy with the way he handled the seven-eighths, because usually that’s a pretty good indication they will go two turns,” the Hall of Fame jockey said.

So Happy and Smith had won the colt’s debut, paying $78, on Nov. 22. He had been vanned from Santa Anita to Del Mar on the morning of that race. Glatt noted that he was such a “lookyloo” in the mornings that he was trained in blinkers to keep him focused.

“I just thought he would be a horse that might need a race a little bit. I did expect him to run well, but I didn’t think he’d run quite that well,” Glatt said of the first start. “He backed up that first race with an awesome performance today.”

Earlier, Baffert won his fourth stakes of the two-week-old Santa Anita meet.

Explora, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ runner-up to Super Corredora last time out, beat three opponents in the $100,000 Santa Ynez Stakes for 3-year-old fillies with jockey Juan Hernandez as easily as her $2.10 payoff suggested she should.

Her 1:22.05 clocking for 7 furlongs was the fastest in the Santa Ynez since Bellafina went 1:22 flat in 2019 in a step toward her victory in the Santa Anita Oaks.

Baffert said the May 1 Kentucky Oaks is his goal for Explora.

LIKE OLD TIMES

Victor Espinoza, 53, back at Santa Anita after riding much of last year in New York and Kentucky, rode his first winner here since February 2025, winning a head-bob with first-time starter Dark Omen ($5.80) in Saturday’s fourth race.

SUNDAY’S RACES

Queen Maxima, even-money on the morning line, goes for her eighth win in 13 career races, her third in four starts at the Grade III level and her third in four tries in hillside turf sprints for trainer Jeff Mullins when the 5-year-old and Hernandez start from the rail in the Las Cienegas Stakes for fillies and mares.

Thermal (Hector Berrios riding), 9-5 on the line, should be prominent from the start against Magnificat (Mirco Demuro) and Margarita Gal (Ricardo Gonzalez) in a field of fillies and mare sprinters seeking their first stakes win in the Grade III Las Flores.