San Gabriel Stakes

Who says it never rains in Southern California? Well, for any music trivia buffs in the audience, it was the little-known Albert Hammond who sang those lyrics, but those living in and around metropolitan Los Angeles will confirm that the precipitation came with a vengeance this Christmas week, flooding parts of Interstate 5 and causing power outages and even the (very) odd threat of tornadoes. Nearly two inches of rainfall was recorded at Los Angeles International Airport, breaking a 54-year-old mark, while nearly four inches fell upon Woodland Hills and...

Trying nine furlongs for just the second time in his career and looking to protect a perfect mark over the Santa Anita turf course, Cuyathy LLC's Johannes (Nyquist) was given a supremely confident steer by Umberto Rispoli and was really only asked to finish up to post a soft victory in Thursday's GII San Gabriel Stakes. Crunched into long odds-on favoritism to improve on his hard-nosed runner-up effort behind More Than Looks (More Than Ready) in the GI Breeders' Cup Mile down at Del Mar on Nov. 2, the homebred...