A year ago, Straight No Chaser parlayed a win in the Grade 2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship with victory in the Breeders\u2019 Cup Sprint to earn the Eclipse Award as North America\u2019s outstanding sprinter. He\u2019ll try and duplicate that feat this year, beginning with a title defense in the $200,000 Santa Anita Sprint Championship going six furlongs Sunday at The Great Race Place.<\/p>\n
Straight No Chaser is among a field of eight entered in this year\u2019s Santa Anita Sprint Championship, which serves as a \u201cWin and You\u2019re In\u201d for the $2 million Breeders\u2019 Cup Sprint Nov. 1 at Del Mar. Other key contenders in the lineup are Dr. Venkman, winner of last month\u2019s G2 Pat O\u2019Brien going seven furlongs at Del Mar; and G1 winner Speed Boach, who set the pace in the Pat O\u2019Brien before fading to fifth as the favorite.<\/p>\n
For Straight No Chaser, this will be his first start in the U.S. since his half-length victory in last year\u2019s Breeders\u2019 Cup Sprint at Del Mar. Trained by Dan Blacker for owner My Racehorse, Straight No Chaser went to Saudi Arabia in February for his return to the race and promptly scored in the G2 Riyadh Dirt Sprint. He then headed to Dubai, where six weeks later, he finished a disappointing eighth in the G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen. Both races were also six furlongs.<\/p>\n
A 6-year-old horse by Speightster, Straight No Chaser is 12: 7-0-1 with $2,636,300. Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez will come west for his regular call on the reigning sprint champion.<\/p>\n
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Dr. Venkman won the Pat O\u2019Brien by a half-length when coming from just off the pace along the inside under Umberto Rispoli. It was Dr. Venkman\u2019s second stakes win and first stakes win in a sprint. Last year, the 5-year-old gelding by Ghostzapper scored in the G2 San Diego, going 1 1\/16 miles at Del Mar.<\/p>\n
Dr. Venkman is trained by Mark Glatt for owners Alipony Racing, Dan J. Agnew, Clint Bunch, and James Hailey. In three starts this year prior to the Pat O\u2019Brien, Dr. Venkman was second in both the G3 Triple Bend at Santa Anita and G3 Kelly\u2019s Landing at Churchill Downs, and fourth in the G1 Bing Crosby at Del Mar. He has an overall record of 10: 4-4-0 with $661,300 in earnings.<\/p>\n
Speed Boat Beach in the Pat O\u2019Brien dueled through opening fractions of 22.53 and 44.87 seconds before fading in the stretch under Juan Hernandez. On Sunday, he\u2019ll have a new rider as trainer Bob Baffert has named Hall of Famer Mike Smith to ride Speed Boat Beach. Hernandez will jump aboard stablemate Imagination, who was a supplemented entry to the field after not being originally nominated.<\/p>\n
Speed Boat Beach\u2019s only other start this year was in May at Churchill Downs. Returning from a 15-month layoff in the six-furlong St. Mathews Overnight Stakes, the 5-year-old horse by Bayern flashed speed early before fading to last in a 10-horse field. He comes in with a record of 9: 4-1-0 with $504,350 and in earnings for owners by Michael Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman.<\/p>\n
THE G2 SANTA ANITA SPRINT CHAMPIONSHIP WITH JOCKEYS & WEIGHTS IN POST POSITION ORDER<\/p>\n
Race 9 of 10 Approximate post time 5 p.m. PT<\/p>\n
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Dr. Venkman \u2013 Umberto Rispoli \u2013 126<\/p>\n
Straight No Chaser \u2013 John Velazquez – 124<\/p>\n
Awesome Rhythm \u2013 Armando Ayuso \u2013 122<\/p>\n
Smooth Cruisein \u2013 Kyle Frey \u2013 118<\/p>\n
Speed Boat Beach \u2013 Mike Smith \u2013 122<\/p>\n
Wound Up \u2013 David Cohen \u2013 122<\/p>\n
Mbagnick- Hector Berrios \u2013 122<\/p>\n
Imagination \u2013 Juan Hernandez – 122<\/p>\n
First post Sunday is 1 p.m. Admission gates will open at 11 a.m.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported by Paulick Report<\/a> on Sep 23, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Paulick Report as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year ago, Straight No Chaser parlayed a win in the Grade 2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9194,6552,21765,45699,3004,20445,71684,101,71686,71683,56,54,55,71685],"class_list":{"0":"post-156733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-breeders-cup-sprint","9":"tag-del-mar","10":"tag-juan-hernandez","11":"tag-pat-obrien","12":"tag-racing","13":"tag-santa-anita","14":"tag-speed-boat","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-sprint-championship","17":"tag-straight-no-chaser","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom","21":"tag-venkman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}