As the horses loaded into the starting gate today at Monmouth Park for the feature race of the day the betting public was firmly behind the 3-2 favorite in Third Rock. The weather today was perfect and the track came back fast, and the group of 5 horses were ready to get their journey started. That is right I said a group of 5 as there were 2 scratches from the race which included Foresight and Pinnacle West. When the gates were popped open all the horses came out well. A quarter mile into the race Galvaston showed that he wanted to the lead and pushed to the front along the inside with Montalcino a length off him on the outside and Spit Fire 2 lengths off the lead. At the half mile point Galvaston was looking strong on the lead running the first ½ mile in 48 seconds flat. Montalcino was still a length off this pace but Spit Fire had fallen further back and was now 3 lengths back. At the 6 furlong mark Galvaston was pulling away from the field and had opened up a 2 length lead on Montalcino who was appearing to fade. He also had a 3 length lead on Spit Fire as well, and it was a long 8 lengths back to the other horses in the race who would have to hope that they could close well in the final 3 furlongs. With 2 furlongs to go Galvaston looked to be the sure winner with the 2 horses closest to him not making up any ground and the back pair still 8 lengths back with what looked like too much work to do with too little time. In the end Galvaston just ran away from the field and beat a hard closing Third Rock by just over .6 of a second. Spit Fire ran third as he was just passed in the final stride by Third Rock. This was a very impressive gate to wire score for this 6 year old gelding for his first graded stakes win. Let’s take a look at how the race broke down and the pay outs:

Track: Fast
Time: :48   1:11²  1:35²  1:48

$2 Mutuel Prices:

$1 Exacta: 2 – 4 Paid 8.90
$1 Trifecta: 2 – 4 – 3 Paid 91.80

Scratched: Foresight(L), Pinnacle West(L)

Claimed:
None

Categories: Grade III