Actress prevails in Black-Eyed Susan

BALTIMORE — The skies over Pimlico Race Course opened up shortly before the start of Friday’s featured race, the 93rd Black-Eyed Susan Stakes.

A few minutes later, the track seemed to do the same for a lightly run 12-1 long shot who used the prestigious race to break her maiden.

The 3-year-old filly, who had finished a close second in her only two previous starts, edged out

by a head to win the $250,000 Grade II race.

finished third.

Just as patience seemed to pay off for Actress and jockey who seemed to be holding his horse back waiting to make a move, it also finally paid off for owners and

The Wests, who also bred Actress at their Kentucky farm, had run the filly just twice, the first time two months ago at Gulfstream Park. Actress lost each of her first two races by 1¼ lengths.

Actress earned $150,000 for her owners and paid $12.80 to those who bet on her. attack and the other got its heels clipped and broke his leg,” the spokesman said. Maryland-bred

a 9-year-old gelding who ran in the 2010 Kentucky Derby, collapsed after winning the first race and having his picture taken in the winner’s circle. A necropsy performed by the Maryland Department of Agriculture in Frederick showed that the horse suffered a heart attack.

The report examining the horse’s death also showed he was running with an elevated level of the anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone in his blood, but it was determined that it had nothing to do with the heart attack.

In the fourth race last year, a 4-year-old filly named collapsed on the turn during the final turn with a fractured left front leg.

The filly, who was euthanized at the track, was owned by and

the couple that owned 2006 Kentucky Derby champion

who shattered his leg in that year’s Preakness and was eventually euthanized.

The two deaths were among three dozen that occurred on Maryland tracks in 2016, according to a post on horseracingwrongs.com, which received its information through a Maryland Public Information Act request to the Maryland Racing Commission.

the trainer for Pramedya, said in an interview earlier this week that “we need to move on, but we to do everything we can to avoid that kind of tragedy. We are even more vigilant and careful about what’s going on with our horses, just to make sure everything is thorough.”