Zipessa the great!
Wow!
Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! What a long and wonderful weekend this has been! On Saturday, the admirable and brilliant Zipessa finally got the big win she’s long deserved with a fine victory for owners Empyrean Stables in the GI First Lady Stakes at Keeneland…
…and today, the tremendously exciting Moon Dash put up a performance and a half to go down by just a nose in the Surfer Girl Stakes at Santa Anita.
But first, let’s deal with Zipessa, the five-year-old daughter of City Zip who was given a peach of a ride by Joe Bravo in the $400,000 race, producing her down the stretch to win by a length and a half.
This is what the big man said about his stable star, in the aftermath of the race:
“Luckily for us—and that’s the way horse racing is—she blossomed for us right at the right time,” said Stidham, about a horse who’s likely to turn up next at Del Mar, for the Breeders’ Cup. “We had been on the East Coast and I hadn’t seen her in 10 days, and when she got here, you could see that her coat and her weight were right on.
“She certainly had this one coming. It was owed to her. Let’s put it that way. She ran so hard last year and this year and couldn’t quite get it done. Today she was pretty dominant.”
As for Moon Dash today, this two-year-old daughter of Malibu Moon was having only her second career start today in a tough looking contest (one worth $100,000), but she flew home down the straight under jockey Mike Smith with such elan, it’s surely only a matter of time before she makes amends in the near future.
With so much good news this weekend, it’s easy to forget the superb victory of Godolphin’s Stellar Moon – a two-year-old Tapit filly, who was winning on her second career start under Jose Bracho at Delaware Park.
And now, for the rest of the week’s entries:
Wednesday
Delaware Park
Pucon – Race 4, Maiden Special Weight
Hawthorne
Iquique – Race 5, Maiden Special Weight
Storming the Beach – Race 7, Claiming $8,000
Friday
Laurel Park
Luna – Race 1, Maiden Special Weight
Mame – Race 1, Maiden Special Weight
Iquique – Race 3, Maiden Special Weight
Dynashe – Race 8, Allowance Optional Claiming
