Take A Breath Edges Resolve by a Nose in G3 Santa Ana Stakes

A nose. That was the entire difference between Take A Breath (GB) and Resolve in the Grade 3 Santa Ana Stakes at Santa Anita Park on Sunday, March 15, and it was just enough for trainer Mark Glatt's 4-year-old filly to punch through for her first American stakes victory.

Ridden by Emisael Jaramillo, Take A Breath covered the 1 1/4 miles on firm turf in 2:02.06, holding off Resolve in a finish that required a hard look to separate them. Mrs. Astor completed the top three. The HRN speed figures told the same story the margin did: Take A Breath earned a 93, Resolve matched her with a 93, and Mrs. Astor posted a 92. Three horses separated by almost nothing.

The daughter of Bated Breath had shown she belonged at this level, but Sunday was the confirmation she needed in the United States. Glatt now has a graded stakes winner on firm turf at a mile and a quarter, which opens up a meaningful range of targets going forward.

For Resolve, the result was a familiar kind of heartbreak. She has been knocking on the door all winter at Santa Anita. On February 21, she ran a 112 speed figure in an allowance optional claimer at a mile on good turf, finishing second to Miss Artois by what the figures suggest was a dead-heat effort. Go back to January 24, and there was a particularly telling race: in an allowance optional claimer at 1 1/8 miles on firm turf at Santa Anita, Resolve finished second with a 110 to Queen Sienna (ARG), also at 110, with Take A Breath third at 109. The two horses that would finish 1-2 in Sunday's Grade 3 ran 1-2 in that January race, in reverse order.

Resolve's form lines from late 2024 paint a picture of a horse finding her footing quickly. She broke her maiden on November 3, 2024, at Del Mar with a 99 figure, then stepped up to the Grade 3 Jimmy Durante on November 30 and ran third with a 95. A fifth-place finish in the Blue Norther Stakes at the end of December looked like a bump in the road, and it turned out to be exactly that. She came back with back-to-back 110-plus figures in January and February before Sunday's graded shot.

Matching the winner's speed figure in a Grade 3 and losing by a nose is the kind of performance that suggests Resolve is running the race of her life at the right time. The problem is Take A Breath is running just as well. When two horses post identical speed figures and one of them earns the grade stakes win, the only honest conclusion is that the photo decided it, not the form. Glatt's filly simply got her nose down at the wire.