Golden State Series: California Distaf Handicap

DOUBLING DOWN

JUST GRAZED ME SCORES BACK-TO-BACK WINS IN CALIFORNIA DISTAFF

BY EMILY SHIELDS

After Just Grazed Me won the $100,000 California Distaf Handicap Oct. 10, owner/ breeder Nick Alexander noted that he “wouldn’t mind having a barn full of horses like her.”

Te popular 5-year-old California-bred mare by Grazen—Fairway Road, by Cuvee, added a fourth stakes win to her tally in the turf sprint at Santa Anita Park. She now has seven wins and 12 top-three eforts in 14 starts for earnings of $494,332, prompting Alexander to say, “She comes from modest beginnings but she’s made of iron and never lets me down.”

Just Grazed Me’s dam was a stakes winner at Fairplex Park as a juvenile, but fnished her career at the $12,500 level before Alexander bought her privately. Her frst foal, Nellie Fox, by Grazen, won three times, but Fairway Road had trouble keeping her foals and didn’t produce another until 2015. Tat was Just Grazed Me, followed by the winning Lucky Pulpit flly Fairly Lucky and the winning Grazen daughter Patsy Cline. All four ofspring to race are winners.

While her pedigree might be modest, Just Grazed Me has been anything but on the racetrack. She debuted with a 61⁄4-length win at Santa Anita in 2018, romping on the dirt, and then added the $150,345 Fleet Treat Stakes next out. She had trouble staying healthy and was of from December 2018 to July 2019, but has continued to fourish under the care of trainer Phil D’Amato.

In 2019 Just Grazed Me fnished third in the $99,164 Daisycutter Handicap and won an allowance optional claimer on the grass at Del Mar before taking both the California Distaf Handicap and the $101,404 Senator Ken Maddy Stakes (G3T). She then ran fourth

© BENOIT PHOTO

Just Grazed Me, Nick Alexander’s prized 5-year-old homebred daughter of Grazen, takes the California Distaff Handicap at Del Mar against males in the $102,500 Sensational Star Stakes and ffth in grade 2 company against fllies and mares.

Her class has never wavered, but her weight has.

“Te main issue has been trying to keep weight on her,” Alexander said. “Tat’s why we turned her out at the end of this spring.”

Just Grazed Me returned from her summer vacation by successfully defending her title in the California Distaf Handicap, having gamely held of the stakes-winning mare Gypsy Blu to score by three-quarters of a length under Umberto Rispoli. Just Grazed Me stopped the clock in 1:02.99 for the 51⁄2-furlong distance.

“Tat was a nice flly of Mark Glatt’s that she beat,” Alexander said.

Te win was gratifying to Alexander, who said, “It’s been a lean year for us compared to last year, but Just Grazed Me put a smile on my face for sure. You never know when they haven’t been out for a while, but she really showed her class. She carried way too much weight (126 pounds, eight more than anyone else in the feld), but that didn’t seem to bother her. I couldn’t be happier.”

Alexander sold Fairway Road to Norman Tavares for $5,000 at the 2018 Barretts January mixed sale. Te mare has an unraced juvenile flly named Grazen Road, who is a full sister to Just Grazed Me and is working steadily at Golden Gate Fields. Fairway Road’s Smiling Tiger yearling died this year, but she has a weanling Danzing Candy flly and is in foal to Rumpus Cat for 2021.