"We babied her a lot," Perdomo said. "She has her own way. She's always telling you when she's happy and when she's not. That is how we've been able to get her where she is now."
Gary Tanaka's Gourmet Girl, who was honored with an Eclipse Award as champion older female of 2001 the previous week, has been retired from racing according to trainer Pico Perdomo."She's absolutely sound," Perdomo said from the Santa Anita backstretch on Feb. 25. "She's a champion and she's proven everything already. She'll go later this week to Kentucky." No decision has been made yet as to who she'll be bred to, but she'll likely follow the Tanaka business plan of being bred to a top stallion then sold in the fall.Gourmet Girl, whom Perdomo purchased at the Del Mar yearling sale in August of 1996, is a daughter of Cee's Tizzy-Rhondaling, by Welsh Pageant. In five seasons, Gourmet Girl won nine times in 33 starts and earned $1,255,373, while winning six added-money races. In her 2001 championship campaign, Gourmet Girl won the Apple Blossom and Vanity Handicaps (both gr. I), and the Sacramento Handicap. In her last start on Aug. 5, 2001, she finished second in the Clement L. Hirsch Handicap (gr. II).