Wednesday, August 25, 2010
STORMY’S MAJESTY HANGS ON IN
By John Scheinman
Ridden by Hall of Famer Edgar Prado for trainer Dominic Galluscio, the homebred chestnut son of Stormy Atlantic took the 1 1/8th-mile dirt race in a time of 1:50.55. The winner paid $5.50 for a $2 win bet as the second choice behind Ibboyee. Galluscio’s other entrant, Johannesburg Smile, finished third in the field of six.
The victory was the fourth in five starts for Stormy’s Majesty – all in state-bred company – with the lone loss being a last-place finish in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy just prior to the
“Last time out, he broke and was right there on a faster pace, and he didn’t like that much,” Prado said after the race. “Today he went a bit more freely and was doing everything very relaxed.”
Under Javier Castellano, Johannesburg Smile broke sharply from post position 5 and raced outside Stormy’s Majesty through a quarter-mile in 23.79 seconds as Ibboyee, trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by John Velazquez, raced fourth.
After six furlongs in 1:12.11, Stormy’s Majesty took over with Velazquez pulling Ibboyee off the rail and setting him down for a long drive that fell a neck short at the wire.
“I rode hard and didn’t get there; that’s the bad part,” Velazquez said. “I had no choice but start asking him early because we were trapped on the inside the whole way. So at the top of the stretch I started hitting him left handed and he was running but he started drifting out at the same time. I didn’t want to take the chance of slowing him down and trying to correct him, so I just kept him going forward.”
Galluscio sweated it out through the late stages of the race.
“The stretch run seemed to take forever,” he said. “I was surprised Stormy was that close; I expected Johannesburg Smile to be on the lead. He ran very game. I might have tried Stormy too prematurely against open company [in the Jim Dandy]. We’ll see how he comes out of this before we decide on his next start.”
With the $60,000 first-place money, Stormy’s Majesty has now earned $138,932 in his career.
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