Sassy ran a great race on Friday October 4th and came in a strong second. Overall it was a fabulous race!

The assistant trainer who ran her got her to the paddock first. She had a few minutes there by herself to take things in. They saddled her on the move, which I think is because she has a tendency to kick the walls around her if she’s kept still. It looks really tough to get the saddle on correctly as the trainer and valet are running along beside the horse.

There was a 10 horse field on the smaller, inner turf track at Laurel. Sassy had the #2 post position and the horse that went on to win had the #3 post postion next to her. There was a bit of a delay getting one of the horses in the gate, and then they were off! Sassy broke very well and sprinted up towards the front of the pack. Her jockey Julian Pimental settled her into 4th place.

The #10 horse flew to the front, and the #3 horse was right up there with it. Sassy sat about 2 strides off of the leader- stalking the pace a bit, but right in contention. Julian let her race comfortably along the inside, saving ground.

As they rounded the turn, Julian made a move, and took Sassy a little bit outside so she could go around the leaders when needed.

As they hit the straight-away (a very long straight-away), all of the jockeys were asking their horses for more speed. The #3 horse was in the lead coming out of the turn, and Sassy and the #10 horse both made a move to catch up. Sassy passed the #10 horse and was eating up the distance between her and the #3 horse. As they crossed the wire Sassy was still closing and she was just 3/4 of a length from winning.

The race went pretty quickly, the first quarter went in 22.03s, the half in 45.23s, 5F was 56.96s, and the entire distance of 5.5f went in 1:03.30s.

Wow, what an exciting race! We are so pround of the great job Sassy did!

Sassy came out of her race just fine, full of herself the next day and not tired which was nice to see.

We’ll be looking forward to her next race!