In Sassy’s race yesterday (7/14/14), she came in second!!

This is her first time going long (1 mile), and she did a great job! She came out of the gate well, and immediately tried to rush to the front. She was really pulling on the jockey, and she moved into second place right on top of the leader before he managed to pull her back. He was trying to keep her off the pace, so he pulled her back to run right along the rail behind the front runner.

As the race progressed to the quarter, she was held in place and a number of horses got ahead of her, she was running about 5th, but still saving ground on the rail.

At around the 6 furlong mark, the field started to bunch up and Sassy was still around 6th. At the 3/8ths pole, Sassy started to make her move. She started accelerating and closing the gap with the front runners. Right around this time, Sassy ran into the rail a little bit, you can see her bobble in the video, but then she kept right on running.

With a quarter mile to go, she was really moving. She was maybe a length off the leader, and there were 5 other horses who were just about even with her. As they rounded into the stretch, she had to get off the rail pass between the tiring leader and another horse. She was leading for a short time, but the horse named Step Aside Boys was making a stronger run and was accelerating faster than her. Step Aside Boys passed her on the inside to take the lead.

To me it looked like Sassy tried to pick up the pace to catch the leader, but at this point I think she was getting tired. She was able to maintain her speed, but she couldn’t go any faster. Two other horses closed at the very end, and it ended up being a photo finish for second place between Sassy and a horse named Periwinkle.

We are extremely happy with her performance. She did everything right, and she just came up a little short for the win. Hopefully after getting her first long race under her belt, she’ll be even more conditioned and able to sustain it for that final push.

She has a new highest E figure of 84 after this race, which is 4 points higher than her previous score of 80. So she is improving!

We’re so happy to see her on the board and showing a lot of effort!

Go Sassy!

Here is a link to Bloodhorse which will let you watch the replay for free:

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/race/race-results?startDate=7%2F14%2F2014&endDate=7%2F15%2F2014&trackLookupId=3834&type=AllRacing&statesBred=&searchStateBredPlacers=false