Californian

STD Racing Stable and Jason Wood's LAVA MAN (Slew City Slew), sent off the

second-longest shot on the board in Saturday's $250,000

Californian S.

(G2),

rated just off Ace Blue (Brz) (Queen Blue) for the first three-quarters of a

mile of the nine-furlong contest before taking over the lead on the turn for

home en route to a one-length score. With local favorite Pat Valenzuela in the

irons, the four-year-old stopped the clock in 1:47 4/5 over the fast Hollywood

track.

Content to sit just off opening splits of :23 2/5, :47 and 1:10 3/5 set by

Ace Blue, the Doug O'Neill-trained gelding put his head in front of that rival

midway through the final turn, getting the mile in 1:35. Anziyan Royalty (Anziyan),

running in third throughout the majority of the race under Corey Nakatani,

made a three-wide move entering the lane but did not have enough left to get to

the winner. Skukuza (Lord Avie) ran on well for third, four lengths back of

Anziyan Royalty.

Lava Man rewarded his backers with $19.40, $9.20 and $6 at 8-1 while keying

healthy $1 exotics of $68.40 (exacta) and $809.40 (trifecta). Anziyan Royalty

returned $8.80 and $6.40 for the place while 33-1 longshot Skukuza paid $10.80

to show. Borrego (El Prado [Ire]) completed the $2,605 superfecta (6-7-2-5), and

was followed by 2-1 favorite Choctaw Nation (Louis Quatorze), Molengao (Brz)

(Royal Academy) and Ace Blue. Keep On Punching (Silver Deputy) was withdrawn.

Bred in California by Lonnie Arterburn, Eve Kuhlmann and Kim Kuhlmann, the

dark bay is out of the winning Li'l Ms. Leonard (Nostalgia's Star) and has an

unnamed two-year-old half-sister by Benchmark. This is his first graded stakes

score, and he improves his line to 23-6-7-2, $458,039 with his Californian

victory.