Chasing Yesterday triumphs in Starlet (G1)

Chasing Yesterday’s game victory in the $300,000 Starlet S. (G1) at Los Alamitos gave Bob Baffert a sweep of the 2-year-old stakes on the Saturday card at the southern California racetrack. He took the Futurity (G1) earlier in the day with the undefeated colt Improbable.

Baffert, who won last year’s renewal with Dream Tree, has now won five Starlets, three times when is was run at Hollywood Park.

Chasing Yesterday, a daughter of Tapit and a half-sister to Baffert’s 2015 Triple Crown hero American Pharoah, has won four of five starts and earned $324,250 for her owner/breeder Jane Lyon’s Summer Wind Equine. 

Out of the gate, it was Baffert’s other filly, Mother Mother, who went to the lead, with Chasing Yesterday at the back of the six-horse field. It was until the group hit the final turn that Chasing Yesterday began to gain ground while four wide. She lost a little momentum entering the stretch, but quickly recovered and out-dueled a very game Enaya Alrabb to win by a head, with Mother Mother just a neck back in third.

“We thought Mother Mother would be on the lead and I told (jockey Florent Geroux) just try to nurse her along,” Bafffert said. “(Chasing Yesterday) was so wide. Turning for home, I really thought Mother Mother was going to kick on and keep going. It was a really thrilling finish. I didn’t think (Chasing Yesterday) was going to get there because she had been so wide. She’s a nice filly, but (jockey Drayden Van Dyke) really sat patient. Pretty nice to get a Grade I win with American Pharoah’s sister.” 

Lyon owns Chasing Yesterday’s dam Littleprincessemma, who is also responsible for a yearling full-brother to American Pharoah named Theprinceofthebes and a weanling full-brother to Chasing Yesterday named Triple Tap.