Golden Award Takes Command to Win Turnback the Alarm
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Photo: Coglianese Photos/Joe Labozzetta
Golden Award wins the Turnback the Alarm Handicap at Aqueduct Racetrack
Summer Wind Equine's Golden Award showed the form that made her a graded stakes winner this summer at Saratoga Race Course, staying just off the pacesetters before taking command in the stretch from the outside and outkicking Another Broad by three-quarters of a length in the $150,000 Turnback the Alarm Handicap (G3) for fillies and mares 3 years old and up Nov. 2 at Aqueduct Racetrack.
The winner of the Shuvee Stakes (G3) July 21 at the Spa, in which she bested grade 1 winners Wow Cat and She's a Julie at the Turnback the Alarm distance, Golden Award returned to the same track for the Aug. 24 Personal Ensign Stakes Presented by Lia Infiniti (G1) but was pulled up and eased. With more than two months off, the 4-year-old Medaglia d'Oro filly again made a strong account of herself against graded stakes caliber.
"She is all class, and, of course, her last race is a little disappointing, but she's obviously rebounded from that," said owner Jane Lyon of Summer Wind Equine. "We're very excited to have her, and I'm looking ahead to adding her to the broodmare band (down the road)."
The Turnback the Alarm is named after the filly who captured five grade 1 wins in New York between the ages of 3 and 4. It also falls on the weekend daylight saving time ends, with the clocks turning back an hour in the early hours of Nov. 3.
Golden Award, the 6-5 favorite, broke alertly from post 6 under Junior Alvarado and stayed just off Jeltrin's early speed, with the opening quarter-mile going in :24.69 and the half in :48.49 on the fast main track. Golden Award took command by the three-quarters mark and held off Another Broad's late charge, completing 1 1/8 miles in 1:49.46.
Trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, Golden Award increased her earnings to $377,100. From 11 starts, she has five wins and three seconds.
"She broke great," Alvarado said. "I talked to Bill earlier, and we kind of saw the race as (Jeltrin) would go and maybe somebody on the outside. That's exactly what happened, so we ended up in a great position.
"We couldn't have asked for a better spot than what we were in the whole way around," he added. "She was just much the best today. I had to make a quick move by the three-eighths pole. I knew I had enough horse to get to the wire from that point, but I didn't want to wait and have the loose horse in front push me outside. So I made an early move just to make sure so I could cut the corner there, but she was much the best. I was just a pilot today."
Out of the Arch mare Arch's Gal Edith, Golden Award is a half sister to 2012 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) winner I'll Have Another . She was bred in Kentucky by Harvey Clarke.
Another Broad was second in the Turnback the Alarm, nine lengths ahead of third-place Moonlit Garden.
Out of the gate, Crimson Frost and Bellera collided, unseating riders Harry Hernandez and Jose Lezcano. Lezcano walked off in good order, but Hernandez was transported to a local hospital for evaluation. Both horses were picked up by outriders and walked home under their own power.