Dictate Cool Scores Debut Victory Saturday at Laurel
Dictate Cool Scores Debut Victory Saturday at Laurel
Eastern Bay Captures Entry-Level Allowance
Rainbow 6, Super Hi-5 Carryovers for Sunday’s Card
Special Nine-Race Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Program Monday, Jan. 15
LAUREL, MD – Sagamore Farm’s Dictate Cool, a homebred daughter of Hall of Famer Curlin, overcame some crowding at the start and her own greenness to rally for a 1 ¼-length debut victory Saturday at Laurel Park.
Trained by Horacio DePaz and favored at 3-5 among six 2-year-old fillies in the $40,000 maiden special weight, Dictate Cool ($3.40) ran 5 ½ furlongs in 1:05.87 over a fast main track.
Dictate Cool and jockey Steve ‘Cowboy’ Hamilton found themselves in tight quarters leaving the starting gate and led just one rival as Bagels and Lox went the first quarter-mile in 23.07 seconds.
Racing a bit green leaving the backstretch, Dictate Cool was eased outside by Hamilton around the turn and steadily gained ground down the lane before taking over the top spot at the sixteenth pole and edging clear.
Rumor Ride came on to be a clear second, 3 ½ lengths ahead of Finding Perfection. Bagels and Lox, Pantyhose and Bayou’s Legacy completed the order of finish.
“She was doing great and we were hoping she would run to the way she’s been training. We’ll take it from here and see what happens,” said DePaz’s assistant, Lazaro Cruz. “We’ve liked her right along.”
Dictate Cool is out of the Candy Ride mare Walkwithapurpose, the Maryland-bred champion 3-year-old filly of 2013. Another Sagamore homebred, Walkwithapurpose won five of seven career starts including the 2012 Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship and 2013 Wide County and Caesar’s Wish – all at Laurel – and was third in the Gazelle (G2) at Aqueduct with nearly $300,000 in purse earnings.
Nancy Lee Farms’ Maryland homebred Eastern Bay, a 4-year-old half-brother of multiple stakes winner John Jones, sat just off pacesetting favorite Shoe Loves Shoe through a half-mile in 46.86 seconds before sweeping past straightening for home and drawing away to a 2 ¼-length triumph in Race 8, an entry-level allowance for 4-year-olds and up.
Eastern Bay ($7) ran six furlongs in 1:11.45 under jockey Elvis Trujillo. It was the second win from eight career starts for the bay E Dubai gelding, who ran fourth in last year’s Frank Whiteley Jr. Stakes at Laurel.
“I was so happy with the way Elvis rode him. He let him settle in nicely and put him in a nice stalking position. He was patient with him and when he said go, the horse went. He’s been tedious to get to the races and keep to the races but it looks like he’s going to pay us back for that. We hope so.”
Rainbow 6, Super Hi-5 Carryovers for Sunday’s Card
There will be carryovers of $3,668.83 in the 20-cent Rainbow 6 and $3,804.75 in the $1 Super Hi-5 for Sunday’s nine-race program.
Tickets with five of six winners in Saturday’s Rainbow 6 returned $76.06. Sunday’s sequence spans Races 4-9.
The Super Hi-5 will be available in Sunday’s opener. First race post time is 12:30 p.m.
Also beginning at 12:30 p.m. is a special nine-race Martin Luther King Jr. holiday program Monday, Jan. 15.
Notes: Jockey Jomar Torres won twice Saturday, aboard Mr. Benz ($5.80) in the fifth race and No More Talk ($7) in the eighth.
