Once in a blue moon, I see something potentially special in a longshot.\u00a0 This week Tomato Magic<\/STRONG> delivered on that untapped potential in spades, winning the Grade II Wilted Petal Stakes.\u00a0 The betting public had little faith in Toplight<\/EM>‘s three-year-old daughter of Galileo, but the trainer saw her win\u00a0three straight turf sprint allowances and knew she was ready for something bigger.<\/P> “She just lit up the first time we tried her going short on the track,” beamed the veteran trainer. “We knew she had a grassy pedigree, so we’d started her in turf routes.\u00a0 She was nothing special there, so we tried the dirt.\u00a0 She perked up a little bit, so we left her there for a few starts.\u00a0 Then I had an opportunity to try her short on the turf and she blew us away.\u00a0 You just never know whether a horse will like something\u00a0 until you give it a try.”<\/P> Two of the prerace favorites, Tequila Shooter<\/STRONG> and Anubis Warrior, <\/STRONG>set a hot early pace, but only ended up wearing each other out.\u00a0 Magic<\/STRONG> stalked patiently, watching her competition become rubber-legged.\u00a0 Just ahead of her was Starinsky.\u00a0 <\/STRONG>In the stretch Magic <\/STRONG>turned on her devastating stretch run and flew by everyone, topping Starinsky<\/STRONG>\u00a0by half a length.\u00a0 For the record, in my preview I stated that “I’m comfortable passing on” longshot Starinsky<\/STRONG>, who in fact ran a lovely race.\u00a0 Third was taken by the late-running Lady of Malay<\/STRONG>, who also did impress me before the race, but ran beautifully for her first on-the-board finish in a graded race.<\/P> What’s next for the talented Magic<\/STRONG>?\u00a0 “We’re considering our options,” says the cagey Toplight, <\/EM>“but we expect big things.”<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wilted Petal Stakes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"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-869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869","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\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}