Santa Ana Lane and jockey Mark Zahra returning to scale after winning the 2018 VRC Sprint Classic. (George Salpigtidis/Racing Photos)
“Lope De Vega was a Spanish poet who was in the Spanish Armada and Santa Ana was the name of one of their boats. “We always have Lane in the name, that’s been part and parcel of our syndicates. For this horse we’ve got to thank Justin Bahen who paid $80,000 for Santa Ana Lane at the Victorian sales,” he said. In honour of Santa Ana Lane and his five-time Group 1 winning record that included the VRC Sprint Classic, the Club has unanimously voted to rename the all Victorian sprint series to the Santa Ana Lane Sprint Series as part of the winter racing championship, of which other heats will be run on the day. Co-trainer Sam Freedman said that Santa Ana Lane was a joy for he and his father to train and believes his record underlines the versatility that Santa Ana Lane possessed. The sprinter won Group 1 races in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. Freedman believes that Santa Ana Lane’s success, who raced into prominence by winning the Wagga Town Plate in 2018, was because of the horse’s slow start to racing. “I don‘t think a lot of people rated him highly at first because he was a horse that didn’t race in his two- and three-year-old days
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