Coach Splashes Home in Pippin
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Photo: Coady Photography
Coach wins the Pippin Stakes at Oaklawn Park
After a rigorous spring campaign at age 3 that culminated with a trip to the Longines Kentucky Oaks (G1), Kueber Racing's Coach was given an eight-month freshening that appears to have paid off handsomely for her connections as she splashed home a convincing three-length winner of the $150,000 Pippin Stakes Jan. 8 at Oaklawn Park.
The 4-year-old daughter of Commissioner launched her comeback off the lengthy layoff in Dec. 17 allowance optional claiming race over the Hot Springs oval, spurting away to a 2-length score over a sealed muddy track. Now stepping back into stakes company for the first time since her ninth-place finish in the Kentucky Oaks, Coach was again facing similar track conditions for the Pippin after the skies opened Saturday to a deluge of rain, leaving the Oaklawn surface sloppy for the day's racing card.
Let go as the narrow favorite over the Phil D'Amato-trained Miss Bigly , Coach jumped smartly from the gates under jockey Ricardo Santana Jr., commanding the field past a :23.44 opening quarter. After a half-mile in :47.60, Miss Bigly, who had been outfooted by Coach at the start, rolled into gear, charging up the inside of the Brad Cox trainee and thrusting a head in front as the pair ran into the final turn. Shoulder to shoulder into the lane, Coach bounded away from her rival with a furlong to go, surging under the wire in a time of 1:37.58 for the mile.
Coach splashes home in the Pippin Stakes
Miss Bigly finished 1 3/4 lengths ahead of W W Fitzy , who was making her first start of the claim for trainer Robertino Diodoro.
Coach ($5.20), earned her second stakes victory in the Pippin, having captured the 2020 Rags to Riches Overnight Stakes at Churchill Downs as a juvenile. The bay increased her overall record to 5-1-2 from 10 starts and earnings of $387,840.
“I thought, given the track condition, Ricardo obviously did a fantastic job of getting (her) involved,” Cox told Oaklawn publicity when reached by phone after the race. “Right away, I loved the position she was in. Once they turned up the backside, she’s a hard-trying filly. I was pretty confident that she would kick on from there and she responded well. She did a fantastic job. She was ready to roll and we’re very proud of her.”
Bred in Kentucky by Three Lyons Racing, Coach is the out of the Exchange Rate mare And Stay Out , the dam of two winners from three foals to race. And Stay Out has an unnamed 2-year-old filly by Collected and was bred to McKinzie for 2022. Coach sold for $65,000 as a yearling to BSW Bloodstock at the 2019 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale from the Candy Meadows Sales consignment.