Prophetic Blade special is tale of two races

In my preview of this race, I said Nymphet had to improve her turf close to challenge here, and she showed some nice stlye in capturing this week’s Prophetic Blade Special. The race was pretty much run to parts, with the first half belonging to early speed, and the entire rest of the field surging forward in the second half. Nymphet held on down the stretch to shut out the rest of the closers, though, and grab her first stakes victory. This is her fourth career victory and pushes her earnings over the 100K mark to $127985 in fourteen starts. It also moves her to rank 134 among three year old Turf Classic runners. Payoffs at the betting window were not too bad, with Nymphet paying $8.50 $4.50 $2.60 across the board, and contributing to a $24.50 exacta and a $94 trifecta.

New Rack(AUS) grabbed the early lead in this one, with Iron Amounis right on her tail to keep her honest. They opened up nearly three lengths on the field by the half, dueling for position the whole time. As they crossed the halfway mark though, it became an entirely different race, with all the closers surging forward as a unit. New Rack(AUS) began to fade quickly, and Iron Amounis held a short lived lead to the third call. It was a closers battle down the stretch, and halfway down this one was still too close to call. Can Of Whoop As held it for a moment, then Nymphet surged by driving for the wire. Peach Classic was driving right up her tailpipe, and looked like she was going to grab it at the wire, but Nymphet held her off for a quarter length victory. Third place went to Whistle On By holding steady two lengths out from third call to wire.