In racing parlance, it was a case of “walking the dog.”
Rider Tiago Pereira put his filly Linda's Gift on the lead out of the gate in the 1 3/8-mile Red Carpet (G3), then stayed there all the way around en route to a three-quarter length victory in the Thanksgiving Day feature at Del Mar.
The 4-year-old daughter of Arrogate set slow fractions of :26.00 :51.62 1:17.30 1:41.97 2:05.98 and finished the distance in 2:17.80 on turf rated as good.
“They left me alone out there,” Pereira said of his filly controlling the pace. “That was fine with me. She was a runner all the way.”
Trained Richard Mandella for an extended ownership group headed by John Cronin, Anthony DiMarco, and Michael Mandara, Linda's Gift picked up a first prize of $60,000 from the $101,000 purse and returned $7.80 to her backers as the second choice in the field of seven fillies and mares.
“I liked the looks of it all the way,” Mandella said of Linda's Gift's front-running win. “I didn't think they (the early fractions) were real. It's hard to gallop her that slow. She looked like she was comfortable. I always thought she was good enough and she rose to the occasion.”
Finishing second was Musical Rhapsody, who had three-quarters of a length on third-place finisher Sister Otoole.
Linda's Gift increased her bankroll to $194,936 with her third victory from her 11th start and earned her first stakes win while making her graded stakes debut. She entered off a fourth in the Kathryn Crosby while trying stakes company for the first time Nov. 11 at the seaside track.
Bred in Kentucky by Calumet Farm, Linda's Gift was produced by the winning Tapit mare Americana. She sold to George Weaver's agency for $50,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Two-Year-olds in Training Sale, where she was consigned by SGV Thoroughbreds.
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