The Martha Washington [KYO]
1 Mile Dirt Stake Purse $200.000 Filly 3 Year Olds.
1st Ruth Langmore Luz International Pennington F
When you play this game as long as I have you start to see ‘types’ or ‘patterns’ and this filly looked to be following a pattern coming into this race that I have seen many times before. Small in stature she took a while to win her maidens, not because she wasn’t good enough but because she just needed some time to hit that improvement curve. The big ‘tell’ here is the improvement and consistency in works after the maiden win and whilst it wasn’t overly obvious if you couple that with a bit of growth it can often be a sign that the horse is coming to a good time in their career. Whether the slightly off track was a factor won’t be obvious for a while but what we did see here was a typical wet race where distances were exaggerated, and dry track form could be reliably left out of calculations. The fast pace certainly helped her late closing style and that would’ve been down to the continuing fault in the pace instructions to ‘dial’ it down for an off track but that all played into her court, and she produced a blistering finish to win. I suspect that to give her a chance in the top races her trainer will have to try and find some early pace but that will be a nice problem to have.
2nd Yow Royalty Stables Lopez P
Stalked a fast pace and though she went to win her race she was always going to be susceptible to the late closer. It is the gamble we take when we use a stalk or an AA type instruction on a wet track that no-one has set a faulty on pace instruction but in this case, they had, and this filly did really well to get as close to winning that she did. Having said that she was proven on a wet track which certainly helped so again we will have to wait to see if she can reproduce this type of effort on a dry surface.
3rd Shadow State Smokey Stover Elliott S
Flew from behind to take third and ran a creditable race for a filly with just one previous start. I have a feeling we will see her in another KYO qualifier, and she would have to come on for this run so i would be keeping a wary eye on her.
4th With Criminals Big Guns Stables Hernandez R M
Battled on pretty well for fourth but i am sure the trainer will be a little disappointed after her huge effort in the Santa Ynez last time. The going could have been against her here so the jury is out until her next start as to whether she will build into an Oaks type.
Categories: STAKES ARTICLES, Ungraded
