Om N Joy became the first black-type stakes winner for third-crop sire Om in capturing the April 5 Evening Jewel Stakes at Santa Anita Park.
Hall of Fame jockey Kent Desormeaux piloted the winner in the $126,000 race for California-bred 3-year-old fillies, guiding his mount from sixth to first. Blocked in traffic. she exploded when given a seam to prevail by 2 1/2 lengths over runner-up Sunset Grazen, completing 6 1/2 furlongs on a track in 1:17.75. She paid $6.20 in capturing her second straight race.
Hot Girl Walk ran third.
"She got to 'em," Desormeaux said. "They were all coming back to her down the stretch. I picked a pocket for her to jump through; she took off like she was going to plow through it if she had to."
The long-legged winner, trained by Aggie Ordonez for owners Connie and Jerry Baker, Michael Golovko, and Terrence Scanlan, was bred by the Bakers out of the Hard Spun mare Margie's Minute. Om N Joy is 2-0-4 in nine starts with earnings of $150,640.
Ordonez notched her first stakes win as a trainer in the Evening Jewel.
A third-crop sire who entered stud in 2020, Om stands at Harris Farms in California for $5,000. A four-time graded stakes winner who placed in four grade 1s, including two runnings of the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint (G1T), Om went 7-7-6 in 32 starts and earned $1,355,082 for the Sareen Family Trust. He ran first or second in 11 graded stakes from ages 3 to 7.
