LOTS TO BE THANKFUL FOR AT PARX

By Dick Jerardi

Starting the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and ending with the
Tuesday after Thanksgiving, five stakes were conducted at Parx and two
Parx-based horses won out-of-town stakes.
Tuesday’s $200,000 Pennsylvania Nursery for Pennsylvania bred
2-year-olds at Parx was the grand finale of the stakes bonanza. It was
strictly a family affair as Winning Time, bred and owned by Kate and
Greg DeMasi’s Pewter Stable and trained by Kate, was given a dream
trip by jockey Silvestre Gonzalez and won it over 81-1 Veeson with
favored Gordian Knot third.
DeMasi trained Winning Time’s sire Winchill (6 wins, $288,294),
his dam Merry’s Pegasus, and his granddam Merry Princess (11 wins,
$319,164). That makes Winning Time a full brother to another DeMasi
trainee, Word On a Wing (6 wins, $203,684).
“When you’re breeding horses, you’ve really got to have a strong
constitution because a lot goes wrong a lot of the times,” Kate DeMasi
said. “But it pays to breed horses in Pennsylvania.”
DeMasi had never won a stake with a $200,000 purse before this
summer. In the space of 100 days, she won two, first with Violent
Turbulence in the Aug. 23 Parx Dash and now Winning Time.
Just before the Nursery, odds-on favorite Girl Trouble dominated
the $75,000 Future Stars Filly Division for 2-year-old fillies. The Jersey
bred was always in control of the race for Paco Lopez and ended up
winning by 6 lengths for trainer Butch Reid and owners Swilcan Stable
(Tom McGrath) and LC Racing (Glenn Bennett).
The three new $75,000 stakes at Parx the day before Thanksgiving
were won by Parx-based horses. Leading trainer Jamie Ness won The
Let’s Give Thanks. An unbeaten mare won The Cornucopia for a one-
horse stable. The Turkey Trot was yet another stakes win for the
combination of trainer Butch Reid and owners Cash Is King (Chuck
Zacney) and LC Racing.
Lupe Preciado and Joe Imbesi won Friday’s $200,000 Shamrock
Rose Stakes at Penn National with the brilliant 2-year-old filly Flor de
Sombra while Reid and his top owners won Sunday’s Discovery Stakes
at Aqueduct with 16-1 Eloquist.
Repo Rocks and jockey Andrew Wolfsont started the stakes when
they just got up in the final strides to run down Twisted Ride and
favored Beren in The Let’s Give Thanks for owner Double B Racing
Stable.
“When I first rode him at Belmont, we won a nice big allowance
there and he was a great horse there,” Wolfsont said.
Repo Rocks ran just as big at Parx.
“I knew I had the horse underneath me,” Wolfsont said. “I just
asked him for everything he had, and he gave it to me.”
Bourbon Bon Bay began her career almost exactly one year before
winning her first stakes in the Cornucopia. She did not run for seven
months after that first start. Then, it was two months before her next start
and almost three months until she was sent off at 6-1 in a stacked field
and made it 4-for-4 for trainer Ramon Martin, jockey Jomar Torres and
owner/breeder Erin Hlubik.
“I’m really choked up,” Hlubik said. “I always knew she was
talented and that’s why I took my time… She’s all heart. She loves to
train in the mornings and she loves to run.”
And she loves to win.
“Small breeder, big dreams,” Hlubik said of her mare.
Ridin With Biden surpassed $400,000 in earnings
with a dominating win in The Turkey Trot. In 19 lifetime starts, the 4-
year-old has six wins and five seconds, including three recent stakes, the
last two with Lopez riding.

The horse’s co-owner Glenn Bennett of LC Racing is having the
best year of his career in racing.
“It’s been unbelievable the amount of wins and places,” Bennett
said. “It’s just been fun. We have nice horses; we have nice 2-year-olds; it’s just been really special.”
If you are counting, that was three more stakes wins for Reid who
is having the best year of his career, a year after having the best year of
his career. Last year, his barn had a record $2.4 million in earnings. This
year, it’s $3.2 million and counting as we hit December.