By Alan Carasso
Gold Standard Racing Stable's Hoosier Philly (Into Mischief), a good-looking debut winner sprinting beneath the Twin Spires Sept. 25, wasn't off to the most alert of beginnings in Sunday's $200,000 Rags To Riches S. at Churchill Downs, but the gray sat a cushy inside trip and responded when asked by Edgar Morales to post a facile first stakes success.
Off a half-step slowly, the $510,000 Keeneland September graduate nevertheless secured the box-seat trip and raced in close attendance to moderate fractions of :24.08 and :48.38 set by Peacock Lass (American Pharoah) with T Max (Connect) not far away. Steered away from the inside and out of the sloppy-track kickback as the field raced into the final three-eighths of a mile, Hoosier Philly launched a three-wide bid while well in hand approaching the quarter pole, put pay to the pacesetter soon after and got to playing a bit late, but proved the no-doubt-about-it winner. T Max edged course-and-distance GIII Iroquois S. heroine Fun and Feisty (Midshipman) for second.
“She broke a little slow but she settled in very comfortably going into the turn,” Morales said. “I had a ton of horse beneath me in the far turn and was so confident in the way she was going. Down the stretch she was switching leads but just playing around a little bit. She was so far in front of her competition and she knew that. I think she has a lot more gears left in her. She's a very special filly and probably one of the best I've ever been on.”
“She's unlike any horse I've ever had in my career and that goes back to 1987,” said trainer Tom Amoss. “I'm so happy for the owners, Bill Stone and Ron Radcliff, and their partners. I'm disappointed they couldn't be here today, but hopefully for the next one. She was pre-entered in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and was the first alternate in the race. We waited all the way until 9:00 this morning to see if she could get in and when I called she was still on the outside, so we decided to run her here.”
Sunday, Churchill Downs
RAGS TO RICHES S., $200,000, Churchill Downs, 10-30, 2yo, f, 1 1/16m, 1:46.90, sy.
1–HOOSIER PHILLY, 122, f, 2, by Into Mischief
1st Dam: Tapella, by Tapit
2nd Dam: Princess Arabella, by Any Given Saturday
3rd Dam: Tortuga Lady, by Thunder Gulch
1ST BLACK-TYPE WIN. ($510,000 Ylg '21 KEESEP). O-Gold Standard Racing Stable, LLC; B-Candy Meadows LLC (KY); T-Thomas M Amoss; J-Edgar Morales. $121,140. Lifetime Record: 2-2-0-0, $190,140.
2–T Max, 122, f, 2, Connect–Pleasant Drive, by Strong Mandate. 1ST BLACK-TYPE. ($22,000 RNA Wlg '20 KEENOV; $10,000 Ylg '21 KEESEP). O-Ready Made Racing, LLC; B-Gerty Bloodstock (KY); T-William Walden. $39,400.
3–Fun and Feisty, 122, f, 2, Midshipman–Grouse Grind, by First Samurai. ($13,000 Ylg '21 KEEJAN; $100,000 Ylg '21 FTKJUL). O-Lucky Seven Stable (Mackin); B-J Stephen McDonald (KY); T-Kenneth G McPeek. $19,700.
Margins: 7HF, HD, 1 1/4. Odds: 1.04, 7.26, 2.33.
Also Ran: Peacock Lass, Stellar Lady, East Shore, Dre Me Less. Scratched: Naughty Gal. Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.
Pedigree Notes:
The 116th black-type winner for her all-conquering sire, Hoosier Philly is a granddaughter of SW and former 'TDN Rising Star' Princess Arabella (Any Given Saturday), who was purchased by Summer Wind Farm for $725,000 in foal to Tapit at the 2013 Keeneland January Sale. Hoosier Philly is the first foal for her dam, acquired by Everett Dobson's Cheyenne Stable for $750,000 at the 2015 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale and she is the second Into Mischief stakes winner out of a Tapit mare, joining Unzip Me S. victress Travieza. Tapella is the dam of a yearling filly by the Dobson-raced Mastery and a weanling Justify colt. She was bred back to Munnings.
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