Making her graded stakes debut, Kentucky-bred Ambaya finished best to win the $300,000 American Oaks (G1) at Santa Anita on Sunday, Dec. 28.
Ridden by Kazushi Kimura, Ambaya is a homebred for George Strawbridge’s Augustin Stables. Trained by Jonathan Thomas, Ambaya split horses near the eighth pole and went on to score by a half-length. The daughter of Ghostzapper covered 1 ¼ miles on turf in 2:01.02.
“I’m feeling great,” Thomas said. “They (the Strawbridges) were here, and they have been such an integral part of our barn, so to pull that off for them today, it was so meaningful.”
Ambaya’s only previous stakes try was a third-place finish in the 1 1/8-mile Christiana Stakes on turf at Delaware Park in September. Most recently Ambaya earned minor awards in a pair of allowance events during the Del Mar fall meet. With the win, she improved to 6: 2-2-1 with $245,960 in earnings. Ambaya is out of the Distorted Humor mare Kundray.
“She always steps through from the gate, but today was actually smooth right out the gate, so it was quite easy to get a nice position,” said Kimura. “I didn’t need to fight with her or send her too much. I was tracking Flavien (aboard stablemate Will Then), and when he decided to move to the outside, I got the extra room for myself.”