Force surges to win

John F. Martin, one of the nation’s highest win-percentage trainers over the past 15 years, has done it the hard way: with claiming horses up and down the price scale.

“It’s what I have to do,” he said.

So when Force surged to a 3¼-length victory in Sunday’s $55,875 Rolling Green Stakes at Golden Gate Fields, he gave Martin his first stakes win since Crushed It took the Robert Dupret Derby on Aug. 2, 2014. Martin hadn’t even run a horse in a stakes event since Aug. 15, 2015.

“I’ve had some horses like him but you need the right connections,” Martin said.

Force is co-owned by Jed and Roberta Cohen’s Red Baron Barn, whose best horses race in Southern California. That’s where the 4-year-old Irish-bred gelding lost his first four U.S. starts after winning two of 14 in England and Ireland.

Force was sent to Martin in early May, and he won a first-level allowance race on the main track May 29. Then he finished third on dirt at the Alameda County Fair and a close-up fifth on the turf at Del Mar.

Back at Golden Gate Fields, Force won an allowance/optional claimer by 4 lengths on the grass Sept. 2, setting him up for his stakes debut in Sunday’s 11⁄16-mile grass race.

“It was a little bit quick back, but you’ve got to go for it,” Martin said. “He’s really sharp right now.”

Breaking from the inside post in the eight-horse field in the Rolling Green Stakes, Force was in fifth place down the backstretch but only 3 lengths behind pacesetter Street Lad.

Jockey Juan Hernandez moved Force outside on the second turn, and they were ready to pounce when Street Lad, Seattle Serenade and Conquest Typhoon began to tire at the top of the stretch.

“We wanted to get a good position and just wait, wait, wait,” Hernandez said. “When he got to the outside and into the clear he started flying.”