Ventura romped to a brilliant victory in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint at Santa Anita.

Bobby Frankel's filly, trained in England by Amanda Perrett last year, produced a stunning stretch run to score impressively in the opening race of the 2008 championship in California.

Dearest Trickski cut out the early pace with favourite Indian Blessing perfectly poised in second spot.

And when the market leader took it up turning in, she looked the likely winner for a moment.

But behind the leaders Ventura had already started a searing run under Garrett Gomez and stormed to the front before going clear in great style.

Indian Blessing stayed on to take second, but had no answer to the turn of foot displayed by the winner. Zaftig was third.

Jockey Gomez said afterwards: "Instead of levelling off, she started to hit top gear and I thought 'Oh boy, here we go'."

Frankel said: "I was a little worried after she broke but when I saw her turning in, my confidence levels raised a little bit."

Ventura's four-length romp was one hundredth of a second off the track record and winning owner Prince Khalid Abdullah said: "I'm very happy and glad to win.

"I won twice before (at the Breeders' Cup) - fortunately with fillies - so next time hopefully it will be with a colt."

Frankel added: "I wasn't too worried when she was quite well back early on because we didn't want to run into the quick pace.

"She made an explosive move to come round the field, showing a great turn of foot.

"She had worked really well before on a synthetic surface and we weren't really worried about that."

John Velazquez, who rode Indian Blessing to second place, said: "Perfect trip. She broke really well, I let the other horse go, and sat right outside of her. I even eased away from the other horses. I got head and head with the horse on the lead, and down the stretch, straightened out, and she came running. That horse still ran right by me. I couldn't believe it. I was running too. Wow, man.

"I knew the horse on the lead is really fast. I wanted to let her go, and I was waiting for someone else to go with them, but they didn't show up, so I just sat off of her on the backside real easy. We ran our race today. She (winner Ventura) just ran a little better."