Yes I Dance skips to win on strange day at Laurel park
Yes I Dance took an allowance race at Laurel Park. Photo by Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club.
by Frank Vespe
On a strange day at Laurel Park, Charles Town-based trainer John Carlisle had the good sense to spend the day in the barn. That part of it, that is, that he didn’t spend in the winner’s circle.
In the day’s second race, Tiz Surprised was declared a non-starter after being held a moment after the gate opened. Four races later, Ghoul’s Night Out was declared a non-starter for the exact opposite reason; she popped the gate prior to its being opened for her rivals.
Carlisle, meanwhile, said he spent most of the day back at the barn with Yes I Dance, the filly he shipped in from his Charles Town base for this afternoon’s featured $42,000 allowance test for three-year-old fillies.
Good thing, too. Yes I Dance had her running shoes on from the moment the latches popped and went on to a three-length victory.
“She’s a pretty nice filly,” Carlisle said. “We were a little bit worried about the distance, but she overcome it right well.”
Indeed, she did, extending her lead from the quarter-pole home en route to a six-furlong journey in 1:11.18.
Under regular pilot Arnaldo Bocachica, Yes I Dance broke alertly to grab the early lead while pressed by favored Rumor Ridge, making her first start in two months.
Those two were a half-length apart after an opening quarter-mile in 22.66 seconds, and they remained in the same order, by the same gap, after a half in 46.34. In the lane, though, Yes I Dance drew away to the win, while Rumor Ridge held second, and Three Hawk rallied late for third.
Yes I Dance paid $14.40 to win and topped an exacta worth $13.20 for a buck.
“I hoped for (this kind of effort),” Carlisle, a West Virginia native, said. “We looked for her to go to the front and hold on.”
Yes I Dance, bred by Greg Partain, is by Yes It’s True out of the unraced Forest Camp mare Rhino Girl. She now has two wins from three career starts. She broke her maiden at first asking over her home track, winning a 4 1/2 furlong dash by eight lengths. Sent to Laurel Park for her second try, she ran third, beaten a length-and-change by the undefeated Elevated Vision.
This win gets Carlisle’s filly back on the winning track. And now he has options.
“We’ll see how she comes out of it and go from there,” the conditioner said. “Maybe we’ll try a two-other-than here on turf or something.”
Yes I Dance is owned by Michael Coombs’s Super C Racing, who purchased her for $17,000 out of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Mixed Sale this past December. She’s now earned $42,820 in her career.
Carlisle has 15 horses in his barn at Charles Town — he’d like to have a couple more — but he doesn’t hesitate when asked who the best one is.
“She’s the best horse we’ve got,” he said of Yes I Dance.
