BY GULFSTREAM PARK PRESS OFFICE (Edited)

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – An astute handicapper, owner Wallace Moore Jr. was looking over the entries last fall at Gulfstream Park when he became intrigued by the filly Ashima, a daughter of Grade 1 winner The Big Beast with three prior victories that was dropped in for the same bargain $8,000 price from her prior start.

Moore called his trainer, Gulfstream-based Sal Santoro, to get his thoughts. A no-nonsense New Yorker from south shore of Long Island who won three graded-stakes with Rose to Gold in the mid-2010s and had recently returned to the game following a near four-year absence, Santoro was candid.

“Now, I had a little prior experience with The Big Beast that I had for a friend of mine. Unfortunately, she had a little bit of a sesamoid and rather than risk her she was turned into a show horse,” Santoro said. “I fell in love with The Big Beast. So when Wally said he got this filly and I asked how much, he said eight grand. I said, ‘Eight grand? Has she got four legs?’ He said she’s a nice filly and I said, ‘A Big Beast, for eight grand? There’s got to be issues with this horse.’

“Me and [assistant trainer] Jose [Gomez] checked her out and I called him and said that she looked really good. She’s a nice horse. I told him to go ahead and drop the [claim] slip and I’d take care of it,” he added. “Well, she won that race and after we got her in the barn we found out one of the reasons she was in for eight grand. It was like trying to put a diaper on a two-headed alligator.”

 

Thanks to Santoro’s patience, persistence and horsemanship, the once-feisty filly has relaxed and unlocked a talent that Moore knew was there, turning Ashima into a win machine. The 4-year-old enters Saturday’s $70,000 Frolic’s Revenge overnight handicap having won seven of her last eight starts including the Jan. 11 Sunshine Filly and Mare Turf against fellow Florida-breds.

 

“The fact that she won for [$8,000] and they put her back in for [$8,000] … I’m glad they did,” Santoro said. “There’s a lot of horses out there that if you just kind of take your time and take a step back [you] realize where the holes are. Maybe they’re not being conditioned enough, maybe it needs dietary changes.

“We changed her diet completely over a period of about two weeks, that and the supplements that I give, and it all paid off. She looks like a million bucks,” he added. “Her coat naturally shines. She holds her weight. She’s probably put on 75-80 pounds, all in the right places. It’s just a matter of taking a step back and taking a deep breath and [saying], ‘OK, maybe we can fix this.”

With only a handful of horses at Gulfstream, Santoro can employ the kind of hands-on approach he prefers. That proved especially crucial with Ashima, whose behavioral issues were preventing her from realizing her potential.

“When she first got here, if you went in that stall with her there was a good chance that you weren’t coming out looking the way you did. So, we tried a little bit of a different approach with her and we won her over,” Santoro said. “I would get there real early in the morning, like four o’clock, take a bucket, go in the stall in the corner closest to the door, and just sit there and play on my phone. And she’d stand at the back end of the stall.

“A couple of times she charged me with her ears back. The door was open, so I could get out. I just sort of held my ground. Then in the afternoon, when Jose came to feed, he would do the same thing. He would sit in there while she was eating and just talk to her and play on the phone. After a week or two, one morning she came over and took a sniff and wanted to see what I was doing. I just reached up and kind of patted her head. She just began to trust us,” he added.

“Now you can put the lead chain under the halter, not even over her nose, and she’ll follow either me or Jose. She’s people friendly. She likes people. You can go in the stall with her and she’ll come right over to you. It was just a matter of taking a little bit of time and seeing if we could get her to meet us halfway. And she did. She’s an intelligent animal and she’s got a world of talent.”

 The newly accepting Ashima began to show the results of that trust on the racetrack. She won the Sunshine Filly and Mare Turf – her stakes debut – in her second start after being claimed and followed with two more wins before having her six-race streak snapped when second by a half-length to Florida-bred Lets Go Koko on June 26 on the all-weather course. Lets Go Koko returns in the Frolic’s Revenge, scheduled for one mile on the grass.

 

“No excuses. Koko is a nice horse. [Jockey Emisael] Jaramillo rode a good race, but I think he made a tactical error and he realized it. We didn’t even discuss it. It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Santoro said. “The horse that won deserved to win. She ran a great race. She’s a nice horse. We’re looking forward to the rematch.”

Ashima rebounded with a six-and-a-quarter-length romp on July 18 going a mile-and-a-sixteenth on the synthetic course under Jaramillo, who will be back aboard for the ninth straight race. They drew post six in a field of eight and are rated at 5-1 on the morning line.

 

Ashima is out of the Colonel John mare Nurse John and was bred in Florida by Cat Racing Stable.

“I think she’s got a good shot on Saturday,” Santoro said. “Coming out of the six-hole, that’s fine. If it comes off the turf and goes to the Tapeta, I’d be happy for that extra 70 yards. Not a problem at all.”

Santoro said the long-range goal for Ashima is the $150,000 Claiming Crown Tiara Nov. 15 at Churchill Downs. Scheduled for a mile-and-a-sixteenth on turf, the Tiara is for fillies and mares 3-years-old and older which have started for a claiming price of $25,000 or less in 2024-25.

“That’s the one we’re aiming for right now. I truly hope that she gets the chance to run there, for her and for the owner. He’s in the car business back in New Jersey, a young guy that truly, truly loves this game,” Santoro said.

“After this race she’s going to have a tiny bit of a break, but we are aiming toward the Claiming Crown. Once we found out way back when, when I ran her back the first time, we started thinking along those lines. As each race came and went, that thinking got a little more solidified,” he added. “Right now, that is the plan. We’ll try to get a race into her at some point in October. It doesn’t have to be anything special, just a race. Then we will progress to the Claiming Crown. Depending on that, we’ll have to weigh all the options at that point.”

Return to the August 15 issue of Wire to Wire