By Ron Parker

IEAH Stables’, Sanford Robbins’s, and Jim Kwong’s Shaggy Mane hustled to the lead and never faltered as she blitzed 12 competitors in the $300,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Sprint Stakes on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.

The four-year-old Bertrando filly, bred in California by the Arnold Family Trust, set sizzling fractions of :21.66 and :44.24 under jockey Mark Guidry in the six-furlong contest. Shaggy Mane steadily increased her lead in the lane en route to a 7 ¾-length victory, covering six furlongs in 1:09.31.

“She took me to the front,” Guidry said. “That’s the way she is. I followed instructions to let her bounce out of there on the lead.”

Shaggy Mane began her career with a pair of eighth-place finishes in Southern California before racing on the Northern California fair circuit, where she blossomed with daylight wins at Pleasanton and Santa Rosa.

She was claimed at Santa Rosa race by trainer Lloyd Mason for Jim Kwong for $12,500, then won two allowance races at Golden Gate Fields and the William P. Kyne Breeders’ Cup Express Handicap at Bay Meadows Race Course.

Sent to trainer Don Chatlos Jr., the Bertrando filly tired late and finished fifth in the 7 ½-furlong Cat’s Cradle Handicap on November 24 at Hollywood Park.

“The [current] owners picked this filly out just for this race,” Chatlos said. “Unfortunately, we had to fill in a race at Hollywood that wasn’t her best distance [to get here].”

Out of the Bel Bolide mare Witchy, Shaggy Mane has won six of nine starts and earned $281,483. 

Ron Parker is a Lexington-based Thoroughbred Times contributing writer

For an Equibase chart, click here.