Lea Farms’ Power Squeeze overtook the heavy favorite, Klaravich Stables’ Ways and Means , approaching the wire and captured the $250,000 Gulfstream Park Oaks (G2) March 30 at Gulfstream Park.
In winning her fourth straight race, the 3-year-old daughter of Union Rags earned 100 qualifying points for the Kentucky Oaks (G1) at Churchill Downs May 3.
Ways and Means, coming off a nearly seven-month layoff, broke from post 4 as the 1-2 favorite in the nine-horse field for the 1 1/16-miles on a fast track.
When the bay daughter of Practical Joke took the lead hitting the stretch, it appeared she might run away from the field. Power Squeeze and jockey Daniel Centeno, though, had other plans.
“The kind of horse Power Squeeze is, she doesn’t like to be on the lead. Today, she showed a little bit more speed,” said trainer Jorge Delgado, whose filly broke from the pole post. “We were hoping there would be a little more pace, but I wasn’t expecting Ways and Means to go for the lead at the half-mile pole. That kind of made her rush a little bit.
“She takes a minute to start going, the track is a little tricky when they go two turns. It’s the first wire, so she didn’t have much time to get there. But Daniel had the timing in his mind. He did everything right to win the race.”
Six Column Stables, Randall Bloch, Jim Gladden, Mike Davis, and Michael Steele’s Into Champagne broke alertly from post 5 to make the lead and set fractions of :24.18 for a quarter-mile and :47.86 for a half-mile.
The daughter of Into Mischief was being pressed by R. Lee Lewis’ Gun Song and rider John Velazquez, and Ways and Means and jockey Irad Ortiz Jr., with Power Squeeze and Centeno following.
“On the backside, I tried to go inside but I couldn’t do it,” Centeno said. “I decided to move outside. I saw Irad just sitting on Ways and Means and I thought, ‘I don’t think I can catch him.’ But my filly saw the clear and she actually responded well.”
Ways and Means took the lead straightening for home, the six furlongs going in 1:11.66.
Power Squeeze then surged on the outside in the final sixteenth and moved ahead of Ways and Means to post a winning time of 1:44.19 and win by a length. She paid $24, $6.40, and $3.80.
“Power Squeeze, that’s what she’s done the last three races,” said owner Bill Cosgrove, from Cleveland, Ohio. “Coming down the stretch, she’s just been better than anybody else.”
Ways and Means finished second to earn 50 Kentucky Oaks qualifying points. She’s now 1-2-0 in three career starts.
Into Champagne took third, paying $3.20, another 5 3/4 lengths behind to earn 25 qualifying points.
The Chad Brown-trained Ways and Means had not run since placing in the Spinaway Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course Sept. 3 when she suffered an ankle injury.
“(Irad) said the first turn cost him,” Brown said. “It got tight in there, he was bounced around a bit, and he got wide. And then when she saw daylight, she kind of pulled herself up to the front, a little premature move. He said he didn’t really want to do that.”
Union Rags, winner of the 2012 Belmont Stakes (G1) stands at Lane’s End Farm in Versailles, Ky., for an advertised fee of $15,000. Power Squeeze is the 16th graded stakes winner worldwide for the 15-year-old son of Dixie Union who entered stud at Lane’s End in 2013.
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