Our Flash Drive flashed a fleet turn of foot to win the CA$158,400 Whimsical Stakes (G3) May 13 at Woodbine.
Ridden by Patrick Husbands, who celebrated his 100th career graded stakes victory and 350th stakes triumph overall, Our Flash Drive, the 3-5 choice in the six-furlong Tapeta race for fillies and mares, 4-year-olds and up, bested fellow Mark Casse trainee Miss Speedy by 1 3/4 lengths.
There was an early tussle on the front end with Forest Drift , to the inside, and Hard Edge , just to her outside, going head-to-head through early splits of :22.57 and :45.03 for a half mile. Husbands kept a patient hand aboard Our Flash Drive, the duo sitting chilly in third as the field readied to navigate the turn for home.
Our Flash Drive then glided past the frontrunners in early stretch and pulled away with ease down the lane as Miss Speedy and United States invader Baby No Worries rallied late for the runner-up prize, with the former gaining the upper hand by a half-length.
The final time was 1:10.12.
“She’s legit,” praised Husbands. “Anything you want her to do, she’ll do. She broke sharp and I was just behind the speed, and I didn’t want the speed to come back and get stopped behind it. So, by the three-eighths pole, I tipped her out into the clear and she got the job done.”
It was the second straight graded stakes crown for the daughter of Ghostzapper of the Dynaformer mare Dynamotor . She came into the Whimsical off a campaign-closing victory in the Bessarabian Stakes (G2) in November.
The 5-year-old Florida-bred mare now has four graded triumphs to her name, including the 2021 Selene Stakes (G3) and 2021 Ontario Colleen (G3).
Bred and owned by Live Oak Plantation, Our Flash Drive ($3.40) is now 6-3-1 from 15 starts. After a seventh and a fourth to start her career at Saratoga Race Course in the summer of 2020, the bay broke her maiden the following June at Woodbine, the start of a three-race win streak.
Miss Speedy, Baby No Worries, Owen’s Tour Guide , Forest Drift, Hard Edge, Ambassador Luna , and Basalt Street completed the order of finish.
“You come here, and people treat you with respect and you work hard and get it,” said Husbands of his riding milestones. “It pays off in the long run.”
Husbands, a native of Barbados who emigrated to Toronto in 1994, has a decades-long association with Casse that has produced many of the stakes winners Husbands has ridden.
“In all my years of riding for Mark, he never gave me instructions,” Husbands said. “We have a very close relationship, something like a dad. He taught me a lot, made me a decent gentleman.”
This press release has been edited for content and style by BloodHorse Staff.
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