Swing and Sway starts, closes fast
HOT SPRINGS — In every sport — horse racing included — game plans can get tossed out right from the start.
Going into the $125,000 6-furlong American Beauty Stakes at Oaklawn Park on Saturday, Swing and Sway’s connections thought their 4-year-old filly would run off the pace as the race developed in front. Instead, she dashed out of the gate and immediately into the lead, and jockey David Cabrera said he never looked back.
There would have been no point.
“A lot of us outguessed ourselves,” Swing and Sway’s trainer Ron Moquett said. “I had this thing laid out in my mind where we were going to be sitting third or wherever, but when they broke the way they did, the rider did what he’s paid to do. He made a decision that would benefit us based on the circumstances right then.”
Swing and Sway, by Maclean’s Music, pulled away from Chanteline, the even-money favorite trained by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen and ridden by Ricardo Santana Jr., to lead by 1½ lengths through a quarter mile in 22.36, and by 2 lengths through a half in 46.00.
Off at 11-1, Swing and Sway seemed to gain momentum with every stride and pulled away to win by 73/ lengths over Summer House in 1:10.68. Barbary Hall was third, a length behind that. Chanteline showed no late bid and dropped back to finish fourth over a sloppy track in the field of six before an announced crowd of 10,000.
Swing and Sway had not taken a lead from the gate since six races back, when she finished last of eight in the Grade III, mile-and-1/16 Iowa Oaks at Prairie Meadows on July 6.
“I think a lot of riders thought there would be more speed, and whenever she broke so well, [Cabrera] just let her go,” Moquett said. “She’s temperamental, and she likes things her way, and he just let her have it.”
“She popped out of there so hard, that I thought, ‘Why not just let her take it while she’s doing it this easy?’ ’’ Cabrera said. “She did it easy all the way around there. I really like this filly. She’s a nice horse.”
As important as $125,000 stakes races are, no one failed to understand why Asmussen was not at Oaklawn to send off Chanteline. He left that duty to assistant Darren Fleming while he was at Gulf Stream Park in Hallandale Park, Fla., watching another of his trainees, Gun Runner, win first place and the $7 million share of the $16.3 million Pegasus World Cup.
Swing and Sway’s last performance was a fourth-place optional-claiming finish over 6 furlongs at Oaklawn on Jan. 12. Moquett said that effort was ideal preparation for the American Beauty.
“I think running over this track is a big deal,” Moquett said. “If you have an out over this track, you have an advantage, because this track is safe, but it’s very tiring. My wife [Laura Moquett] gallops her, and she told me two days after that last race, ‘Find a race. Find a race. She feels good. She feels strong.’ She bounced out of that race really good.”
Robertino Diodoro trainee Summer House, a 6-year-old mare by Tiznow, was in her final of 25 career starts. She retires with 7 wins, 6 seconds, and 3 thirds, and earnings of $371,556.
Ridden by David Cohen, Summer House was in fourth as she turned for home but inside of 2 lengths behind Chanteline in second. Cohen said it was clear to him that Swing and Sway would not be caught and that a second-place stakes finish would be an adequate swan song for Summer House.
“There was no reason to waste a run trying to catch a filly we had no chance to catch,” Cohen said. “It’s nice to see her exit on a high note.”
Cohen, who rode Swing and Sway’s previous Oaklawn start, said he was impressed by the filly’s improvement.