With a name like Sunshaft, why worry about the rain? The Rodolfo Baez Equinics race for three year old fillies at 9 furlongs was run on a soft turf track. The winner ran like it was just any other sunny day.<\/p>\n
Sunshaft not only won this race in a route but she did it with her best speed figure to date. She broke cleanly but stayed in the middle of the pack and when it came time to give jockey SL Ledwith another gear, she shifted easily. The Mineshaft out of Sun Grazer filly has now won half of her ten races and is an early three year old horse of the year candidate after winning this GI race and the GIII Panhandle Park Oaks race earlier this year. That makes her a two in a row and four of five winner with only a stumble during DePenn days that cost her. The biggest thing is that she has now beaten her biggest competition in her past two races. Trainer MrBigB was noticeably nervous before the race as his big filly had never ventured onto a muddy track and was way out in the 16th post position. He was ecstatic afterward though as he was surrounded by his Queensland buddies who were dousing him with big mugs of Fosters.<\/p>\n
Verdant Field, a 17\/1 long shot in the race took the lead right from the bell and showed her affection for an off track. Just off her shoulder was Angela, one of the pre race favorites. The two of them took off and looked like they would build a lead that would hold up on the yielding track. Their biggest worry was super horse, Jaca who was running fifth. Way back in 11th and 14th more than 7 lengths and a myriad of horses behind were Sunshaft and Gypsy Angel who were gathering mud and looking like also rans. They both kicked it up a notch on the back stretch and looked like a pair on a mission, weaving through horses and picking up positions. Angela tired in the heavy turf and dropped back. Sunshaft caught Verdant field in the final turn and blew by her like she was standing still. She went on to win easily by 6 lengths even with Ledwith easing back a bit before the wire. Verdant Field held on for second in front of a hard charging Gypsy Angel. Jaca finished just a bit behind her and Theatrical Fog rode Jaca\u2019s shoulder all race to finish fifth.<\/p>\n
Last years horse of the year nominee and ML favorite, Cosmo Girl continued her frustrating season by settling in 13th with an uninspired race. Trainer TheOC2 blamed the turf but has to wonder why his prized filly is zero for two this year and both times to both Jaca and Sunshaft.<\/p>\n
Sunshaft will now get a well deserved rest and point toward a very important race in the beginning of May. It appears that the weather won\u2019t be a worry for her as it does for so many young horses. Congrats and well done!<\/p>\n
PazJazz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Proves she is the top Three Year Old Turf Filly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":321,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/321"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}