CYPRESS – The way Man O Rose won the E.B. Johnston Stakes on Saturday, fans at Los Alamitos might have wondered what took the 4-year-old gelding’s handlers so long to try him in a two-turn race.

One reason is that Man O Rose kept winning and winning in one-turn races.

“He’s been dying to go a mile,” owner Bruce Zietz said. “But he’s so fast, you put him in a sprint and he wins. What are you going to do, change?”

Trying 1 mile, the Los Alamitos oval and the stakes level for the first time, Man O Rose went straight to the lead under regular rider Edwin Maldonado and never looked back, pulling away to an eight-length victory in the $75,000 race for California-breds.

Man O Rose paid $4.20 to $2 bettors. Dont Fight the Fed finished second, Coalinga Road third, Cowboy Mike fourth in the eight-horse field.

Maldonado, tied with Armando Ayuso atop the jockey standings with three wins in the first two days of the two-week Los Al thoroughbred meet.

“My only concern was getting him to relax,” Maldonado said of Man O Rose. “When we hit the first turn, he threw his ears forward and that was the important thing.”

Man O Rose is a son of Stanford and Kathleen Rose, the dam being the third mare in the family owned by Zietz. The breeding suggested Man O Rose could race longer, but he kept racing at distances from 5 to 6 1/2 furlongs, on both dirt and turf. Racing and winning, finishing first in six of 10 sprints as high as the allowance level after moving to trainer Jeff Mullins last year.