The Acorn – Grade I

1 1/8 Mile Dirt Stake Purse $500.00 Filly 3 Year Olds.

1st        Pineapple Puff              Nakamura Stables     Santana R        1:48.03

Well, I won’t say I told you so…..but I told you so. With only two speed horses in this race I  thought this may be stolen by one of them and sure enough the AI took the closers back, left the speed alone and just raced each other as this one sauntered away in front seemingly unseen by all the other jokeys.

I must be fair to this filly though, she is very good and very nearly lasted home to win the KYO in a much quicker time last time so it wasn’t as if a win in this fashion was a long shot.

She is building the sort of form now that will put her right in the mix for the BC distaff and it doesn’t take too much imagination to see her doing exactly the same in that race.

2nd       Woman On The Moon              Arindel               Curtis B             1:48.60

A slight surprise to see her the first of the closers home as she could only manage ninth in the KYO but previous race orders do not mean much from race to race and she is certainly good enough to be this close to winning a grade one. Despite winning the Gazelle this could be considered her best career performance.                 

3rd        Dreambits                      Mb Stables                     Velazquez J R 1:48.65             

Stalked the lead as expected and was just a bit one paced as stalkers can be, ending up a solid third. On the face of it she may just find this trip a little bit further than she wants to go. I feel she did everything right but just didn’t have enough to win today.

4th        West Coast Girls         Diablo Diablo                Pennington F 1:48.73             

A little disappointing that she didn’t find more but I have seen this before when a filly has campaigned against the boys, they can just be a little flat afterwards. I think a spell will do her good and maybe we will see her back to her best in the Autumn.

Categories: Grade I, STAKES ARTICLES