LONG ON VALUE TAKES LUCKY COIN STAKES
SARATOGA SPRINGS >> After six horses, including a pair of MTOs, were scratched from Monday’s featured 5½-furlong Lucky Coin Stakes, it looked like a good chunk of the speed had been eliminated, thus perhaps improving the chances of forwardly placed types.
In turf sprints, however, the winner usually comes from off the pace, regardless of whether the early fractions were fast or not. In the $100,000 Lucky Coin, longshot Beantown Saint got away with a relatively pokey :45.17 half-mile. He was swallowed up in the usual mad dash to the wire, however, with Long On Value getting last run and prevailing by a length. The running time was 1 minute, 1.76 seconds over a firm Mellon turf course.
“It was a good trip,” said winning jockey Joel Rosario. “I was able to save ground early, and he had plenty of run late. He’s a nice horse and [winning trainer Bill Mott] had him well prepared. He ran great today.”
At the top of the stretch, it looked as if all seven horses were still in with a chance. Successful Native made a bid in mid-stretch, and at one point held a brief, short lead. But Long On Value was coming hard and had the most momentum, and he ended up winning going away.
Successful Native was second by three-quarters of length and was followed by Undrafted (the 6-5 favorite), Spring to the Sky,
Cyclogenisis, Beantown Saint and Sandy’z Slew.
On paper, the Lucky Coin looked like an unusual spot for the Virginia-bred winner, who had won graded races at eight and nine furlongs in Florida and California, as well as minor stakes in Delaware, Virginia and Minnesota. His only start at 5½ furlongs was at least two years ago.
“Sometimes I get an intuition that I need to change something up,” said Mott. “This horse had run in a couple of [turf sprints] when he was a 2-year-old. [Co-owner] Adam Wachtel bought him off a couple of these types of races, and I said, “Why not?’
“He’s been a horse to go a mile, a mile-and-an-eighth, and you had to cover him up and completely switch him off. I thought, ‘Why not give him a try [at a sprint] one time?’ He’s been good to us, and we had nothing to lose. This opens up options for us down the road.”
With the win, Long On Value improves to 7-4-2 from 22 starts, and the $60,000 winner’s share bumps his lifetime earnings to $673,118. The 5-year-old son of Value Plus races for Wachtel Stable and George Kerr.
Watershed victorious in Spa return
After breaking his maiden by four lengths last summer at Saratoga, and failing to figure in the King’s Bishop, the then 3-year-old Watershed hit the road. An allowance race at Keeneland was followed by a start in the Grade 1 Malibu on opening day at Santa Anita, two group tries in Dubai and, last month, an allowance at Belmont Park.
Watershed only won one of those races (the Keeneland allowance), but bettors apparently liked his back class, dispatching him as the 9-5 favorite in Monday’s seventh race, a nonwinners-of-two allowance/ optional claimer run at nine furlongs on the main track.
Do you know something made the early running, with Japanese-bred Tale of Life not far back in second. The leader started getting away from the field on the turn, and after another spurt in mid-stretch, led by lengths at the furlong pole. But Watershed was making a grinding run on the outside, and with assistance from Tale of Life – who was getting going at the same time – the Godolphin runner got by Do you know something and out-finished Tale of Life to win by a length. Time of the race was 1:50.51.
Watershed is trained by Kiaran McLaughlin and was ridden Monday by Joel Rosario.