Gabriel Charles Flies to Eddie Read Victory
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Gabriel Charles showed an amazing turn of foot to win the Eddie Read Stakes. (Photo by Eclipse Sportswire)
Coming into the far turn of the $400,000 Eddie Read it looked like Midnight Storm was going to be the winner but that result turned in a flash when Gabriel Charles flew past everyone for the victory.
Big Cazanova led most of the race with Midnight Storm sitting only about a length off of him during the early stages of the 1 1/8 mile race. Gabriel Charles was second to last for most of the time, sitting about six lengths off the leaders in the Del Mar backstretch.
Midnight Storm overtook Big Cazanova in the turn as the rest of the field closed in on the leader. But with more ground than the others to make up, Gabriel Charles got stuck behind the wall of horses that battled with Midnight Storm at the top of the stretch.
But jockey Mike Smith knew exactly when to pull his horse wide to go past the group and as soon as he got Gabriel Charles clear, they were gone. There was no catching him as he pulled away to win by 3 ½ lengths with Twentytwentyvision in second and Finnegans Wake, who had been lengths off of the rest of the pack during the majority of the race, in third. Power Ped rounded out the top four finishers in the race.
This was Gabriel Charles’ second graded stakes victory with both of them coming over Del Mar’s turf course. The 5-year-old son of Street Hero is trained in California by Jeff Mullins for Sam Britt and Michael House with all of his starts coming at Del Mar and Santa Anita.
Run on good turf, the clock was stopped at 1:48.13 for 1 1/8 miles at the wire.
Going off at odds of 4.70-to-1, Gabriel Charles paid $11.40 to win on a $2 ticket. For the Equibase chart, click here.