Broken Dreams snuffs out Kindle in time in Sen. Maddy

The free-wheeling Kindle put on an exhibition of raw speed for most of

Saturday's Grade 3, $100,000

Senator Ken

Maddy at Santa Anita, but she floundered the last half-furlong, and

defending champion Broken Dreams rallied in time to deny the longtime leader. A

Glen Hill Farm homebred trained by Tom Proctor, Broken Dreams covered about 6

1/2 furlongs on the firm turf in 1:11.81, not far off the downhill mark of

1:11.13, to score a repeat.

Kindle, the 5-2 second choice, blasted right out of the gate in her turf

debut. As she sizzled through fractions of :20 4/5 and :42 2/5, Kindle opened up

a sizeable margin. Broken Dreams, who was shortening up off a trio of route

races, stalked beneath Garrett Gomez, but the 3-1 third choice still had about

five lengths to make up at the top of the stretch. The 2-1 favorite Byrama, who

had been last early, had even more of a deficit to overcome.

The front runner was still motoring, with a considerable advantage, and

appeared on the verge of a scorching wire-to-wire victory. But Kindle began to

tire in the latter stages, and her stride became progressively shorter.

Broken Dreams, in contrast, was just striking top gear. Looking stronger the

farther she went, the six-year-old mare blew by Kindle in the final strides to

win going away by a half-length.

"I had some concerns (about Kindle's big lead)," Gomez said. "The simple fact

is, coming to the dirt (cross-over), instead of picking her (Kindle) up, she

(Kindle) actually moved away from me another length or so and I was like, Oh,

man. I know my filly is going to stay going 6 1/2 and I know she's going to keep

coming.

"But by the time we hit inside the eighth-pole, she (Kindle) wasn't coming

back still. I had maybe made up a little bit of ground on her, but not much, not

enough to get there. Finally, (Gary) Mandella's filly went ahead and threw in

the towel and folded up about the last 50 yards, and I knew Broken Dreams was

going to stay on well.

"Last year when she won this race she looked like she was going to run fifth

outside the sixteenth-pole and she ended up winning by a (half-length), so I

have a lot of confidence in her. She's just a blast to ride."

"Just a little bit too long for her," trainer Gary Mandella said of Kindle,

"but she's a good filly with a big heart. Love her. I thought she'd be in front,

but it didn't matter whether she had speed on paper or not. The way she broke,

you were just going to go on. You can't take horses back when they break like

that. She out-broke the gate, practically."

Byrama also closed well for third, just a neck behind Kindle.

"They went quick and we got quite a long way back," Byrama's trainer Simon

Callaghan said, "and she galloped out in front. She ran a good race. We just

didn't quite get the room when we needed it, but she ran well and galloped out

in front. We're not disappointed in her."

Givine reported home another 2 1/2 lengths back in fourth, trailed by Teroda,

Briecat, Ninth Infantry and Miss Mittagong. Missdealornodeal was scratched.

Broken Dreams returned $8.40, $5 and $3 while boosting her own bankroll to

$377,682 from her 22-7-5-1 line. Unraced until she was four years old, the

daughter of Broken Vow soon established herself as a stakes-caliber performer by

finishing second in the 2010 Lena Spencer at Saratoga in her stakes debut.

The chestnut thrived on Santa Anita's downhill turf course in 2011, taking

runner-up honors in both the Grade 3 Monrovia and Clocker's Corner Handicap

before scoring a breakthrough in last fall's Senator Ken Maddy. That earned her

a tilt at the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint versus males, but she didn't fare as

well dashing five furlongs at Churchill Downs and wound up 13th of 14.

Broken Dreams took a few starts to come around this season. Sixth in the

March 4 Ladies Turf Sprint at Gulfstream, she reappeared in the May 27 Great

Lady M. at Hollywood, in which she had finished third in 2011. But Broken Dreams

failed to run up to that level in fifth. Proctor next gave her the opportunity

to stretch out to a mile, and she did better when fourth in the June 10 Redondo

Beach. Broken Dreams improved again to wire the 1 1/16-mile Osunitas on July 21

at Del Mar, but after fading to last in the Grade 2 Yellow Ribbon (formerly the

Palomar) September 3 over the same course and distance, she reverted to the turf

sprint game here.

"I thought she was in a good spot until they crossed the dirt and that filly

(Kindle) kind of got away a little farther," Proctor said. "Lucky she could run

her down.

"She's been a nice mare for three years, hasn't given us any problem at all.

We had some early issues when she was three and didn't even think she might get

to the races, but once she got to the races, she was good.

"I might try to run her two turns in the Goldikova just because that's here

in two weeks. We'll see."

The Grade 2 Goldikova, formerly the Las Palmas, is held at one mile on turf

November 4.

As Glen Hill Farm President Craig Bernick noted on Twitter, Broken Dreams is

a sixth-generation homebred. The Florida-bred is out of the unraced Storm Cat

mare Our Dreamer, who is also responsible for multiple Venezuelan stakes winner

Gran Leon.

Broken Dreams' second dam is $1.2 million-earner One Dreamer, best remembered

as the upsetter of the 1994 Breeders' Cup Distaff.

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