Victories for Sia and Indicado Highlight a Lucrecia Carabajal Double

A Lackluster Start to the San Isidro Season Still Produced a Few Standout Names

Win a Star Completed Lucrecia Carabajal’s Double at San Isidro / JUAN I. BOZZELLO

Quality is becoming increasingly hard to find at the country’s leading racetracks, now trapped in a routine of staging poor races at the lowest possible cost, as prize money has quite literally ceased to mean anything.

Complaints can be heard everywhere, yet few are willing to step forward, leaving the tracks themselves to dictate— with absolute authority—everything that concerns national racing, always turning inward and showing no interest in grandeur, better spectacles, or in developing horses capable of becoming true stars and drawing in a wider audience. If all the races are alternative-level events or restricted to five-year-olds and up, so much the better. Time is proving that this approach has led to less competitive stock, with victories abroad becoming harder and harder to achieve.

Against that backdrop, the opening of the 2026 season at San Isidro produced a dismal program, witnessed by only a handful of people in the stands and generating a handle of Ps.449,355,202, an average of Ps.37,446,266 per race—far too much for what was actually offered.

Those figures are then used by those in charge to justify these repeated affronts to the history of Argentine racing: if the numbers more or less add up, nothing else seems to matter.

On the track, there was little of note. Sia (Puerto Escondido–Suspecta, by Luhuk, Haras El Mallín) picked up the third win of her career at five in the Premio Jasminka (1400m, dirt), adding to a record that also includes four thirds. Ridden by Rodrigo Bascuñán and trained by Gustavo Romero, she edged Fiestera Craf (Mastercraftsman) by three-quarters of a length, barely justifying her meagre $1.45 return.

Later, a group of three-year-olds clashed in the alternative mile of the Premio Abogada Brava, also on dirt, where Indicado (Seek Again–Institutriz, by Orpen, Haras Carampangue) produced a resolute late run to prevail by half a length over Zakapa (Fortify). Apprentice Thiago Larrea Frutos partnered with trainer Edgardo Martucci for the victory.

The one bright note was a pleasing double by Lucrecia Carabajal, who scored aboard Horse Real (Horse Greeley–Real Pro, by Petit Poucet, Antonio R. Musso)—trained by Javier O. Vicente and marking a winning debut for apprentice Enrique Carlos Weishem—and later with Win a Star (Winning Prize–Passing Star, by Star Dabbler), prepared by Roberto M. Bullrich for Fernando J. Fourcade.

Thus ended a Friday best forgotten at San Isidro, which at least looks ahead to a far more attractive card this Sunday in terms of quality. At the very least, it is good to know the eyes will not hurt quite as much.

Indicado Registers Second Career Victory at Alternative Level / JUAN I. BOZZELLOI