Talented distaffers CE CE and As Time Goes By headline Saturday’s Santa Maria Stakes

A two-time Grade I stakes winner at age four and fresh off a sensational classified allowance win, Bo Hirsch’s homebred Ce Ce and lights-out Grade II winner As Time Goes By headline Saturday’s Grade II, $200,000 Santa Maria Stakes at Santa Anita.  For fillies and mares three and up, the Santa Maria has attracted a field of five at a mile and one sixteenth.

Trained by recent Preakness Stakes-winning conditioner Michael McCarthy, Ce Ce slingshotted off the turn for home en route to an emphatic 3 ¼ lengths score in a seven furlong classified allowance here on April 17 and will be ridden back by Victor Espinoza.

A 3 ¼ length winner of the Grade I Beholder Mile here in her sixth career start on March 14, 2020, Ce Ce then took Oaklawn Park’s Grade Apple Blossom by a head at the same distance on April 18, 2020, but was a disappointing third as the 3-5 favorite in last year’s Santa Maria and was on a four-race losing streak prior to winning her comeback race on April 17.

Ridden to all five of her victories by Victor Espinoza, Ce Ce is a 5-year-old mare by Elusive Quality out of Hirsh’s Grade I winning Miss Houdini, who is by Belong to Me.  The leading money earner in the field with $904,100, Ce Ce has a win and two thirds from three tries at the Santa Maria distance.

Trained by Bob Baffert, As Time Goes By made an easy lead as the 3-5 favorite in the Grade II Santa Margarita Stakes here on April 24 and exploded through the lane to win off by 9 ¼ lengths under Mike Smith, who rides back on Saturday.  Owned by Michael Tabor, Mrs. John Magnier and Derrick Smith, As Time Goes By, who was second, beaten 2 ¾ lengths by Eclipse Champion Swiss Skydiver two starts back in the Grade I Beholder Mile March 13, is 6-3-2-1 overall with earnings of $260,600.