Mopo Racing's Alwaysinahurry, making just his second start this year, collared Grade 3-winning favorite Mighty Mischief in mid-stretch and powered home a 4 ¾-length winner of Sunday's $100,000 Concern Stakes at historic Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md.
The fifth running of the six-furlong Concern for 3-year-olds, honoring the first Maryland-bred winner of the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Classic, was the second of four stakes worth $375,000 in purses on the Independence Day holiday program.
Trained by Dale Capuano and ridden by Jorge Ruiz for his third win of the afternoon, Alwaysinahurry ($20.20) completed the distance in 1:10.56 over a fast main track. Mighty Mischief, who captured the Grade 3 Chick Lang Stakes May 15 at Pimlico, finished second to snap a three-race win streak. They were followed under the line by Three Two Zone, Singlino, Sibelius, and Roderick.
“He always trained well and I always liked him,” Capuano said. “Alwaysinahurry just disappointed me a few times so we gave him some time off for the winter and let him mature a little bit. Today he ran like I thought he could.”
Mighty Mischief broke running from Post 1 and quickly established command through a quarter-mile in :22.97 seconds, going a half in :45.95 while pressed to his outside by Roderick. Ruiz and Alwaysinahurry settled in third before tipping out approaching the stretch, then set down for the drive to the wire.
“He rode him excellent. We talked about that before the race. We thought there would be plenty of speed,” Capuano said. “We knew [Mighty Mischief] was going to go from the rail so we just wanted to sit off the pace and try to save ground and he did a good job doing that. He had a good trip and it worked out perfectly.”
It was the first career stakes win for Alwaysinahurry, who ran second to multiple stakes-winning stablemate Kenny Had a Notion in the Maryland Million Nursery last fall before capping his juvenile season running fifth behind Jaxon Traveler in the Maryland Juvenile Futurity, both at Laurel Park.
Alwaysinahurry, a gelded son of leading Maryland sire Great Notion, returned from a six-month layoff to be fourth by a length facing his elders in an open six-furlong allowance June 9 at Delaware Park, giving Capuano the confidence to return to stakes company.
“The Delaware race was a very tough race. They were all older horses and he fought all the way after the layoff and came out of the race really well,” he said. “I just thought that this race surely wasn't any tougher than the last race. That was kind of a hidden tough race. It all worked out well.”
Earlier wins for Ruiz on Sunday's card came with No Fooling Dude ($31.20) in Race 2 and Behind the Couch ($13) in Race 6.
Concern, trained by the late Dickie Small, won seven of 30 career starts and more than $3 million in purse earnings from 1993-95. His 1994 season included wins in the Breeders' Cup and Grade 2 Arkansas Derby, seconds in the Grade 1 Travers Stakes, the Grade 1 Super Derby and Grade 2 Ohio Derby, and thirds in the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes, Grade 1 Haskell, Grade 2 Molson Export Million, and Grade 3 Round Table.
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