ARTICULATOR in an Easy Win!
The Oak Lee Plate Stakes
Grade II
Five and one half furlongs on the Firm Turf Course
$300,000
All horses, 3 years old and upStakes record – ARTICULATOR 1:02 3/5, 108.06 SPF, 2009
I mentioned in my preview that there were more questions than answers in the race but one horse that we were pretty sure about was ARTICULATOR and he proved that he was the class of the field in a nearly perfect ride by jockey Evans. SATRUS had a furious finish at the end but by then our winner was cruising and easily won the premier running of the Oak Lee Plate GII Stakeshere in Victoria, Australia this weekend.
For ARTICULATOR it was the second Graded win and fifth Stakes win overall and he was able to gain her 10th victory in 32 tries. He has now won two in a row and really seems to be on top of his game. He has nearly $650k in earnings for trainer Turbo1 and the Pedro Racing Empire and looks like he could be a contender for quite a while. He has run 13 straight triple digit SPFs. He also improved his overall rank to number six in his class for turf sprints.
At the beginning of the race there was a battle for first right out of the gate between REZURRECTION , DRUNKEN LULLABIES and DANE’S FOLLY who eventually took the lead. REZURRECTION was able to come back and gather third in the race but you could tell that the early pace took it out of all three horses. ARTICULATOR patiently sat back in fifth place a couple of lengths back and let them duke it out. He made his move in the last turn and blew by everyone easily. He actually let up a bit in the stretch because of his lead and could have won by a bigger margin. As mentioned, SATRUS came from back in twelfth with a huge move to get within a length of the winner and take second but looked like he needed a bit more real estate to show his stuff.
Turbo1 has quite a special horse in the stable and has to be really excited about the prospects of this beautiful horse. He looks like he could be one of those that just seems to run on the turf forever.
Good luck to all runners!
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