Amazing Come From Behind Victory!
The NORTHERN LIGHT Stakes
A mile and one half on Fast Dirt
$95,000
All Horses, 4 years old and up
I had the top two right in my preview but I missed the right order by a nose. That doesn’t tell the tale of the amazing race that K’S ABBUNDANZA ran in the Northern Light mile and a half Stakes in Japan today. He was so far behind WESTERN QUEST at one point in the race that he was surely out of cell phone range.
K’S ABBUNDANZA was entered in his very first Stakes Race and made his Daddy, A.P. Indy very proud as he looked like a chip off the old block. He ran his best Speed Figure to date with a 102 and blew by everyone in the field to win his third in a row and fourth of five races. He certainly had the home field advantage as this was his 13th consecutive start at the Japan Track. The crowd made him feel welcome too as they cheered they home town hero and relished his incredible finish.
This was really a two horse race all along as WESTERN QUEST jumped out to a nice lead from the gate and looked for awhile like he would run off and hide from the field. At the half way point, he had an eight length lead over ROYFLY’S DUBAI and a seemingly insurmountable SIXTEEN length lead over K’S ABBUNDANZA who looked buried and too far back to do any damage. That was when the eventual winner started to make his incredible move. He gobbled up real estate like Donald Trump and caught a tired WESTERN QUEST just short of the wire. SKUNKANISI was an afterthought six back in third as he passed fading horses in the stretch.
I don’t know whether trainer Kronus was as shocked as the rest of us that his horse could come back from so far out but he certainly had to be happily surprised. I would recommend that he tell his jockey the next time to maybe stay at least within hailing distance of the leader during the race!
Best of luck to all of these fine horses.
Paz