Come Dancing Runs Away With Aqueduct's Distaff Handicap
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Photo: Coglianese Photos/Cheslea Durand
Come Dancing wins the Distaff Handicap at Aqueduct
Blue Devil Racing Stable's Come Dancing had a ball on the front end with jockey Manny Franco as the 5-year-old mare grabbed the lead at the start and never looked back in posting a lopsided 7 3/4-length victory April 5 in the $150,000 Distaff Handicap (G3) at Aqueduct Racetrack.
Coming off a neck loss in the Go For Wand Stakes (G3) at a mile in December, the cut back suited Come Dancing ($10.60) perfectly in the seven-furlong stakes for fillies and mares. The Kentucky-bred maintained a clear lead through easy fractions of :23.40 and :46.68 and then pulled away with gusto in the stretch to kick clear of runner-up Pacific Gale.
Watching the race, winning trainer Carlos Martin felt the mare had some help from above in carving out the moderate fractions.
"Manny is a great rider, and he rode a great race. Obviously, when she broke on top, he went on with it, and when I saw her go :23 4/5, I was looking up at the sky saying, 'God bless my father (Jose Martin) and grandfather (Hall of Famer Frank 'Pancho' Martin).' Being a third-generation trainer, I wondered if they were looking over me with those fractions. It was a special moment."
Final time was 1:22.31 for Come Dancing, who carried 118 pounds and increased her earnings to $339,200.
"She put her ears up right away," Franco said. "That was the key. She put her ears up, and I knew that I had a lot of horse under me."
The victory was the fifth in nine starts for the homebred daughter of Malibu Moon but her first in a graded stakes. Out of the Tiznow mare Tizahit, her previous stakes win came Sept. 9 in the Royal Delta Stakes at Belmont Park over a sloppy racetrack.
Tobey L. Morton's Pacific Gale took a run at Come Dancing leaving the quarter pole but was no match for the winner in the stretch.
"We had a perfect trip," said Joe Bravo, who rode Pacific Gale, "but, wow, did we run into a buzz saw today."
Nevertheless, the 26-1 shot finished a comfortable 6 1/4 lengths ahead of Stonestreet Stables' 2-1 second choice and 119-pound highweight Dawn the Destroyer, who was a well-beaten third. Holiday Disguise, winner of last year's Distaff, was fifth.
Kathryn the Wise, the 9-5 favorite, was sixth in the field of seven, 26 lengths behind Come Dancing.
The victory was the third of the day for Franco, the New York Racing Association's leading rider in 2018.