DOING GREAT UPSETS TWELVE PACK SHELLY IN MARYLAND MILLION LASSIE
LAUREL, MD. 10-02-10----R. Larry Johnson’s Doing Great stood up to 1-5 favorite Twelve Park Shelly and beat her in the drive to win in the $100,000 Jim McKay Maryland Million Lassie at Laurel Park, the first of 11 stakes races on the card.
Under steady urging by jockey Julian Pimentel, the Great Notion filly completed the six-furlong distance in 1:12.06 and won by a half-length. Twelve Pack Shelly, who led from the start and was looking for her third straight stakes win and her fifth victory in seven starts, held on narrowly to remain second as Love’s Reason rallied furiously to finish third.
“The two horse was the one to beat,” said Pimentel. “We were going pretty fast that opening quarter and we were tight all the way down to the finish. Those two were very nice fillies running hard today.”
Mike Trombetta trains Doing Great, who had romped in her only start against claiming maidens at Monmouth Park on September 11. She paid $23.60 and topped a $40.80 exacta and $54.40 trifecta.
“My instructions to Julian were if nobody entertains the favorite, it’s going to be your job, because if nobody did we had no chance,” said Trombetta. “If somebody else had gone out she’d have sat third and stalked, but I knew if she (Twelve Pack Shelly) got a soft first quarter nobody would have pushed her at all. She was ready in her first start. It fit well time wise as preparation for this one. This race tells us she is a lot better than we originally expected.”
The favorite, who in her debut on Apr. 8 shattered the Laurel Park track record at 4 ½ furlongs stopping the clock in 50.83 seconds, ran a credible race according to her trainer and co-owner John Salzman, Jr.
“She ran good today,” Salzman said. “She just got second. I have no excuse. We’ll wait six or eight weeks and probably run her back in a stakes at Penn National.”
The victory is the third on Maryland Million day for Trombetta. Spectacular Malibu captured the Lassie in 2006 and the Distaff two years later for the Baltimore native.
-mjc-
PHOTO CREDIT-Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club
Mike Gathagan
Vice President-Communications
Maryland Jockey Club
410-578-4461 (Pimlico)
301-470-5461 (Laurel Park)
240-876-7403 (Mobile)
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