Ten Things You Should Know: Rodeo Drive Stakes

Formerly known as the Yellow Ribbon Stakes

By Kevin Martin, Hello Race Fans Contributing Editor

1) The Rodeo Drive Stakes is run at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California. The race is a Grade 1 run at a distance of 1 ¼ miles on the turf. It is restricted to filly and mares 3-years-old and up. This year’s edition is part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge series, the winner will qualify for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf in November.

2) The race was formerly known as the Yellow Ribbon Stakes and run for the first time in 1977. The 2012 edition was the first edition of the race under its new name.

3) The name change was part of a mass renaming of 14 stakes races on the Santa Anita fall stakes calendar. The names changes came about with the end of a longtime partnership between Santa Anita and the Oak Tree Racing Association. The Rodeo Drive Stakes is named for a posh shopping district in Beverly Hills, California.

4) The 1985 winner of the Yellow Ribbon, Estrapade, became the first (and only) female to win the Arlington Million in 1986 during an Eclipse-winning campaign for female turf horse.

5) Hall of Famer Flawlessly finished second in the 1991 and 1992 Yellow Ribbon. She was voted champion female turf horse in 1992 and 1993.

6) Tranquility Lake won the Yellow Ribbon in 2000 and finished second in 2001. She went on to foal Grade 1 winners After Market and Courageous Cat, both sired by Storm Cat.

7) Spanish Fern finished first in 1999 Yellow Ribbon and second in 2000. She died tragically after suffering an injury in the 2000 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.

8) Wait a While is the only two-time winner of the Yellow Ribbon, a feat she accomplished in non-consecutive years (2006 and 2008). She won the Eclipse Award for champion 3-year-old filly in 2006.

9) In 2012, Marketing Mix won the Rodeo Drive and finished second in that year’s Breeder’s Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Wait a While is the only other winner of the race to finish in the top three of the BC Filly Turf.

10) Trainer Bobby Frankel won a record five editions of the Yellow Ribbon. The first came in 1993 with Possibly Perfect and his last in 2005 with Megahertz. He won three straight from 2003 to 2005.