Heavily favored Liberation and jockey Juan Hernandez had to work for the filly’s first stakes win, edging 4-1 Cecilia Street and Diego Herrera in the $100,000 Soviet Problem Stakes at Los Alamitos on Sunday. Cecilia Street challenged front-running Liberation first on the far turn, and again after slipping a length behind in mid-stretch, but couldn’t get by the John Sadler-trained daughter of Omaha Beach and Ponytail. Liberation, who paid $2.60 after winning by a half-length, had finished third in three previous tries at the stakes level and was the only horse with stakes experience in the 1-mile race for California-bred 2-year-old fillies. Long shot Tiger Lady finished third. “Around the quarter pole she kind of lost concentration and slowed down a little bit, but I think she was waiting for company,” Hernandez said of Liberation. “Once (Cecilia Street) came to her, I started working on her and she came back and won the race.” With the two-week Los Alamitos thoroughbred meet already half-over, Kazushi Kimura and Armando Ayuso lead the jockey standings with four wins each. Kimura rode Bob Baffert’s Consequent to victory in Saturday’s $200,000, Grade II Starlet Stakes. Sadler, Baffert, Steve Knapp and George Papaprodromou are tied atop the trainer standings with two wins. Related Articles Rams thump Cardinals to stay tied atop NFC West Lincoln Riley set to return to Alamo Bowl, this time as head coach of USC Alexander: UCLA women boat-race Oregon — and they’ll hear about it Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s water polo team beats Pomona-Pitzer to claim Division III national title LA City Council seeks answers about federal Olympic task force ...read more read less