10/22/2021
Going to try for brief recap blogs for each race day this meet. Hope to get as many done as possible. Today’s Fall Meet kicked off with an 8-race card so let’s get into it.
The 6th race on Friday was a 50K Starter Allowance for Fillies and Mares 3yo and Up. The Jonathan Wong trained Allie’s Pal broke sharp from the rail and never looked back as she wired the field to win by 1 3/4 lengths. Jockey William Antongeorgi did a great job by getting her to relax on a loose lead and was able to save more than enough for the stretch drive. This is now the 2nd lifetime win for the 3yo daughter of Creative Cause, with her first being a 25K MCL on the turf in August. She has always possessed a lot of natural speed, as she has either been in front or no worse than 2nd by a head at the 1st call of every race she’s been in. I feel like this race was originally supposed to be a turf race, but with the recent rain, all races this week have been carded for the main track. This was Allie’s Pal’s first race on the tapeta at Golden Gate Fields and she handled it very well. She has been very consistent with 7 of her 8 starts being in the money and has now put her career earnings just over $50,000.
There were a total of 3 2yo races on the opening day program. In the opener Spinning Plates battled outside for the lead early and pulled away in the stretch. The 2yo daughter of Hard Spun broke her maiden in career start number 3 for trainer Peter Miller on the big class drop from Southern California. In race 5, we saw the Jonathan Wong trained Stanford Bay score a dominant 5 length win in a 50k Starter Allowance. After being on the lead early he put away Go Thru the Hole on the turn and then proceeded to pull away for an easy win. The son of Stanford finally put it all together after 2 tough 2nd place finishes. The 7th race was a 25K MCL for fillies going 6f on the tapeta. 4/5 favorite Alesha was dropping in for 25 after a strong 2nd place finish by a head at MSW level in her debut. Today the Greg James trainee stalked the leaders and showed a strong kick in the stretch under Armando Ayuso to win going away.
Lastly, I just want to give a big shoutout to jockey Pedro Flores who won in his first start of the year after being out due to injury. He won today’s 2nd race aboard Somara at odds of 10/1 for trainer Jose Puentes. It was great to see Pedro back out there and hopefully we get to see a lot more of him in the winner’s circle this meet.
Jockey William Antongeorgi (R1,6) and trainer Jonathan Wong (R5,6) both scored opening day doubles.
Full results from today’s card https://www.equibase.com/static/chart/pdf/GG102221USA.pdf
Tomorrow’s card is a good one, especially the races in the late p5 sequence. Lot’s of large fields and interesting races. An 11-horse field Allowance for Older horses is the headliner in R8 and it is between a pair of large field 2yo races. Should be a fun one!
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