Yesterday and today: April 26 racing highlights
Forest Funds won an allowance at Laurel Park on April 24. Photo by The Racing Biz.
From Staff Reports
YESTERDAY’S NEWS: DIAL LONG DISTANCE FOR… OOPS, NEVER MIND
As the field approached the half-mile pole in yesterday’s co-featured seventh race at Parx Racing, track announcer Keith Jones ran through the field, concluding that you’d have to “dial long distance for” Serious Happiness, a 32-1 longshot ridden by Jose Flores who was over 17 lengths behind with half of the one-mile test remaining.
Not for long.
The Uriah St. Lewis-trained El Corredor filly began to make up ground on the turn, swung out wide entering the lane and closed with a rush to run down Jar of Hearts by 1 1/4 lengths. It was another half-length back to Rare Medal in third. Running time for the mile on a fast main track was 1:42.16.
It was the third career win, from 21 starts, for Serious Happiness, who was making her ’16 debut. The New York-bred has earned $163,636.
Serious Happiness paid $66 to win and topped a $237.20 exacta. She was the second consecutive bomber to win — Pretty Cool Cat was paid $126.20 to win the sixth — and as a result, the pick three sequence concluding with race seven paid just $91.10 on two of three.
ALSO…
- Eighth Wonder was a steward’s scratch from the eighth, leaving the undefeated runner’s return for another day. It also left a pretty wide open heat in its wake, and the main beneficiary was She’s Hot Wired, who rallied to win by two under Trevor McCarthy in 1:11.11 for trainer Mario Serey, Jr. It was the second win in three starts for a horse who’d won just two of her first 30 tries.
- Salty’s Hero, the favorite in the Parx Racing nightcap, broke down nearing the far turn and had to be euthanized.
- Trainers Marcos Zulueta and Louis Linder, Jr. each won two on the day.
LOOKING AHEAD: TODAY’S RACING
- Humility (5-1) has taken full advantage of the Pennsylvania-bred program at Penn National, having broken her maiden at first asking and then run third against allowance foes, both at the Grantville oval. But with Parx Racing’s equine herpesvirus-triggered quarantine dragging on, the John Servis trainee will have to stay home to tackle local state-bred foes in race eight, going 5 1/2 furlongs. The most formidable of those foes, perhaps, is morning line favorite Prodigious (5-2), who has two wins from 12 starts, or True Knockout (7-2), who has one win in eight tries. Jorge Vargas will ride Humility.
- Smarty Never Quits (8-5) has finished third twice in three career outings, and that — coupled with the addition of Lasix — is enough to make the sophomore Smarty Jones filly, trained by Frank Pollara, the solid favorite in Parx Racing’s fifth race, a one-mile test for maiden fillies. Hot rider Emmanuel Esquivel, winning at a 20 percent clip, will be in the irons against a modest group in which the second choice on the morning line, Office Secretary (3-1), has a single second place finish in nine starts and has lost her two 2016 starts by a combined total of over 31 lengths.
