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Claiming Crown: ‘Peculiar’ Smile Sprint Winner Miles Ahead Tops Rapid Transit

David Melin, Laurie Plesa and Leon Ellman's Miles Ahead will bring graded-stakes credentials into Saturday's $85,000 Rapid Transit at Gulfstream Park, which will host the $810,000 Claiming Crown on the first weekend of the 2021-2022 Championship Meet.

The Eddie Plesa-trained 4-year-old gelding, who captured the $200,000 Smile Sprint (G3) at Gulfstream Park July 3, will seek to make amends for a subpar showing last year in the Rapid Transit, a seven-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds and up who have raced for a claiming price of $16,000 or less in 2020-2021.

The Claiming Crown Rapid Transit, a seven-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds and up who have run for a claiming price of $16,000 or less in 2020-2021, is one of nine starter stakes on Saturday's 11-race program with a noon first-race post time.

Miles Ahead's career got off to a most inauspicious start when he was eased in his December 2019 debut in a $50,000 maiden claiming race on turf. The son of Competitive Edge pulled off a Jekyll and Hyde act while taking to Gulfstream's main track for his second career start, graduating by 12 ½ lengths in a $12,500 maiden claiming race.

“I didn't think we'd lose him, and I wasn't sure he would like the dirt. He was kind of a peculiar horse at that time. His works were unimpressive. The reason I put him on the turf the first time was he didn't really show anything on dirt. He ran miserably [on turf],” Plesa said. “We said, 'He's not showing anything. Let's go ahead an put on the dirt and throw a set of blinkers on him,' hoping that everything turns out OK. Low and behold, he won by the length of the stretch. That was eye-opening for us,” he added. “Needless to say, I was very happy to find out we didn't lose him.”

Miles Ahead, who was purchased for $175,000 at the 2019 OBS March 2-year-olds-in-training sale, went on to become a reliable and productive allowance and starter allowance runner in 2020 before blossoming into a graded-stakes winner this year.

“He's just kind of taken off,” Plesa said. “That [maiden claiming] race made him eligible for starter races, which is the reason he's eligible for this race, and he's capped it off with a graded-stakes win.”

Miles Ahead, who finished a close second behind multiple graded-stakes winner Diamond Oops in an overnight handicap leading up to the $200,000 Smile Sprint, put it all together in the Smile, which co-headlined the July 3 Summit of Speed program with the $350,000 Princess Rooney (G2). The Kentucky-bred gelding stalked the pace while racing clear on the outside before sweeping to the lead at the top of the stretch under Victor Espinoza and holding off Chance It.

“He deserved to be in the race. Edwin Gonzalez was supposed to ride him, but he got hurt that day earlier on in the program. We were lucky to pick up a top rider, who had flown in from California, and everything clicked,” Plesa said “It was a great win for the horse and it was great for us.”

Melin, Ellman and Plesa's wife, Laurie, have enjoyed a most successful partnership for many years, most notably with Itsmyluckyday, a Grade 1 winner of $1.7 million who won the 2013 Holy Bull (G2) before finishing second in the Florida Derby (G1).

“I've trained for David Melin for, say, 32 or 33 years. Leon Ellman is a friend and business associate of David's. Our partnership has been in business for about 10 years,” Plesa said.

Miles Ahead was shipped to Saratoga following his Smile win for a start in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt (G1), in which he encountered early bumping and finished ninth after an extremely wide trip. In his most recent start in a five-furlong off-the-turf overnight handicap at Gulfstream, he closed with a rush from far back to finish second, a neck short of victory.

Paco Lopez, who has won three of four starts aboard Miles Ahead, has the mount Saturday.

Owner/trainer Kathleen O'Connell's Well Defined will also bring graded-stakes credentials into the Rapid Transit. The 5-year-old gelded son of With Distinction, who captured the 2019 Sam F. Davis (G3) at Tampa Bay Downs, has enjoyed a profitable 2021 campaign, during which he has won five races, including the $100,000 Benny The Bull.

Luca Panici has the call on Well Defined.

Travin Stables' Lookin At Roses, who finished fourth in the Greenwood Cup (G3) at Parx prior to winning a starter allowance at Laurel last time out; Imaginary Stables and Elizabeth Dobles' Pudding, a overnight handicap winner at Gulfstream after being claimed for $25,000 during the summer; Frank Calabrese's Financial System, who just missed in optional claiming allowance company in his first start off a $10,000 claim; and Michele and Lawrence Sargent's Legal Deal, a last-out winner who finished third behind Miles Ahead and Well Defined in a starter allowance last summer; are also entered in the Rapid Transit.

I'm a G Six, Fortunate Friends, Motataabeq, and Star Sign round out the 11-horse field.

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As Time Goes By Will Face Six Others In Sunday’s Bayakoa

Two-time Grade 2 winner As Time Goes By will have six rivals in her return to Los Alamitos in the $100,000-guaranteed Bayakoa Stakes Sunday.

A Grade 3 for fillies and mares (3-year-olds & up) at 1 1/16 miles, the Bayakoa will be run for the fifth time at Los Alamitos.

Post time Sunday is 12:30 p.m. The Bayakoa is the last of nine races and has an approximate post time of 4:28 p.m.

Trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert for Mrs. John Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith, As Time Goes By will get some class relief after finishing eighth of 11 in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Distaff Nov. 6 at Del Mar.

A 4-year-old American Pharoah filly out of the Dehere mare Take Charge Lady, As Time Goes By earned her biggest victories in a span of four weeks at Santa Anita earlier this year. She captured the Santa Margarita April 24 and the Santa Maria May 23.

The dark bay filly broke her maiden by four lengths in her lone start at Los Alamitos, defeating six opponents at six furlongs last Dec. 13. She's 4-for-11 with earnings of $475,600.

Baffert will be seeking his second Bayakoa win locally as he took the inaugural running with Tiz Midnight in 2014.

Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella, who won the 2017 Bayakoa with Majestic Heat, will be represented Sunday by Moonlight d'Oro.

Owned by MyRachorse and Spendthrift Farm LLC, the 3-year-old Medaglia d'Oro filly was runner-up as the odds-on choice in a restricted stakes at Del Mar Nov. 3 after nine months on the sidelines.

Out of the Bernardini mare Venetian Sonata, Moonlight d'Oro has won twice in five starts and banked $183,790. Her biggest win came in the Grade 3 Las Virgenes Feb. 6.

Benjamin and Sally Warren's homebred Warren's Showtime will make her Los Alamitos debut for trainer Craig Lewis.

The California bred daughter of Clubhouse Ride and the Affirmative mare Warren's Veneda has been effective on turf and dirt, winning eight of 23. The 4-year-old has earned $794,431.

Harvest Moon will make her first start for Tabor and breeder Alice Bamford and trainer Simon Callaghan since finishing distant third behind As Time Goes By in the Santa Margarita.

A daughter of Uncle Mo and the Shamardal mare Qaraba, the 4-year-old has four wins in eight attempts and has banked $382,720. She graduated at Los Alamitos in her second career start July 3, 2020.

Third as the favorite in the 2020 Bayakoa won by Proud Emma, Stellar Sound will be making her first start since finishing sixth of eight in the Grade 2 Zenyatta Oct. 3.

Owned by breeder Don Alberto Stable and trained by Michael McCarthy, the 4-year-old gray daughter of Tapit and the Unbridled's Song mare Siren Serenade has won three of nine and earned $194,200. A win Sunday would be her first in a graded event.

Trainer Paddy Gallagher will send out Lisette for breeders Aaron and Harrison Sones. The 3-year-old Uncle Mo filly out of the Unbridled mare Cordoba has one win in five starts and earnings of $55,820. She has been idle since finishing a well-beaten fourth in the Grade 3 Torrey Pines Stakes Aug. 21.

A decisive winner against optional claimers Oct. 11 in her first for trainer Leonard Powell after being claimed for $40,000 seven weeks earlier, Bye Bye Bertie will make her Los Alamitos and graded stakes debut for a partnership that includes Gatto Racing LLC, All Schlaich Stables LLC, James Cahill, Brian Kahn, Mathilde Powell and Arthur Spencer.

The 5-year-old daughter of Affirmative and the Ready's Image mare Dream of Bertie has won seven of 18 and banked $230,888.

From inside out, the field for the Bayakoa Stakes: As Time Goes By, Flavien Prat rides, 124 pounds; Harvest Moon, Mike Smith, 124; Bye Bye Bertie, Abel Cedillo, 119; Warren's Showtime, Juan Hernandez, 121; Lisette, Kyle Frey, 116; Stellar Sound, Kent Desormeaux, 119 and Moonlight d'Oro, Drayden Van Dyke, 118.

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Cigar Mile Entrant Following Sea Has ‘Shown He Can Run With The Very Best’

Spendthrift Farm's Following Sea, a Kentucky homebred, will look to bolden his potential stallion credentials in Saturday's Grade 1, $750,000 Cigar Mile Handicap presented by NYRA Bets at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Trained by Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher, Following Sea defeated multiple graded stakes-winner Firenze Fire in the Grade 2 Vosburgh on Oct. 9 at Belmont Park en route to a troubled third in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Sprint on Nov. 6 at Del Mar.

Following Sea had to steady in upper stretch of the Breeders' Cup when a seam along the rail was closed off by pacesetting favorite Jackie's Warrior, forcing Hall of Famer John Velazquez to angle the horse several paths wide. He made up enough ground to round out the trifecta at 20-1 odds, finishing 1 ½ lengths to Aloha West and Dr. Schivel.

“Take nothing away from the first and second horses because they obviously finished beautifully,” said Spendthrift Farm general manager Ned Toffey. “But if that hole stays open, he would have had to have his running shoes on. It would have been nice to see what would have happened. He looked poised to roll through there. He's a horse who has shown us a lot of talent and shown he can run with the very best in the country. We always need a little luck in this game and with that, he's more than capable of coming away with a win.”

After an open-length maiden score at Oaklawn Park for Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, Following Sea was transferred to Pletcher and made his debut for the stable a winning one, defeating winners going 6 ½ furlongs on June 3 over the Belmont main track.

Following Sea made his graded stakes debut in the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational six weeks later at Monmouth Park, where he was elevated to second via disqualification after finishing a distant third. He then rounded out the trifecta in the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens Memorial in August at Saratoga behind talented sophomores Jackie's Warrior and Life Is Good.

As one of the more prominent racing and breeding operations in North America, Spendthrift Farm's racing program is centered around making colts under their tutelage into stallion prospects.

Toffey said the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park could be one of the major goals for Following Sea's 4-year-old season.

“Our goal is always hoping that any colt in our program can earn his way into our stallion barn. I think that's what we're looking to do with Following Sea, so his campaign will be shaped around that.” Toffey said. “Certainly, the subject of 'stallion-making races' is an interesting one. If you ask stud farms and breeders, the Met Mile would be very high on that list. That would be one goal we would have in mind. Obviously, there's the Breeders' Cup as well. But as always, we're going to listen to Todd, and Todd will listen to the horse.

“This game is a little tricky to look too far ahead in, but we just have to see how things unfold,” Toffey continued. “He's a fun horse to have in the barn. He's given Todd every indication that he's ready to run a good race.”

A win would also provide Following Sea's second-crop sire Runhappy with his first Grade 1 victory as a sire. The medication-free stallion, who stands at Claiborne Farm, was voted 2015 Champion Sprinter and has seen his offspring garner much success in their second year of racing age.

“Following Sea has gone a long way to keep Runhappy in the forefront. He's shown that he's a horse that doesn't take a backseat to too many,” Toffey said.

Following Sea is out of the Speightstown mare Quick Flip, a stakes-winner during her juvenile season who also produced Gimmick, an Into Mischief filly, who broke her maiden this summer at Saratoga. Quick Flip is scheduled to be bred back to Into Mischief, who has been the leading sire for three years running.

Into Mischief stands at Spendthrift Farm for a $250,000 stud fee and has been the pride and joy of the Lexington, Kentucky farm.

“He's a remarkable horse, that's for sure,” Toffey said of Into Mischief. “We've been very fortunate to have him in our barn. What I see the most is that they're really good-minded horses. They tend to enjoy their job. They like going to the track and train and are very workmanlike and at the same time very talented.”

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Rivalry Between Elle Z, Yes It’s Ginger Resumes In Saturday’s Pan Zareta

A ghost of Christmas past is oft-mentioned each December around Fair Grounds. Not just because she died on Christmas Day, but for the way she died and the tragedy of a career and lineage cut short. Pan Zareta, North America's record-holder with 76 wins, caught a deadly case of pneumonia at age 8. She had transitioned from racing to become a broodmare, but after failing to get in foal, she was returned to training at Fair Grounds. And at Fair Grounds she remains, buried under the infield grass and celebrated every year by the circuit's best turf sprinting fillies and mares in the $75,000 Pan Zareta Stakes.

A quality field of 11 female turf sprinters are programmed for Saturday's feature at Fai Grounds Race Course & Slots. M Bar O LLC's Elle Z, Mike Diliberto's lukewarm morning line favorite at 7-2, and Brilliant Racing & Tagg Team Racing's Yes It's Ginger (5-1) have met a few times before. There were 10 dominant lengths between them when they first met, favoring Elle Z. Then it was 1 and 1/4 gallant lengths between them favoring Yes It's Ginger in their most recent meeting.

With a final time .045 seconds off the Ellis Park course record that day, Yes It's Ginger's connections aimed for Fall graded stakes at Kentucky Downs and Keeneland. Neither came up well for Yes It's True's five-year-old mare.

“I don't think she cared for the surface that day [at Keeneland],” trainer Greg Foley said. “You kinda got to throw that race out. Even the Kentucky Downs race before, a little further than she wants to go. She came out of the races fine and we've freshened her up in between. She looks good, coat's good, and hopefully she'll be good on Saturday–we think she will.”

Looking at the last two races, bettors might assume Yes It's Ginger's form has departed as well. 6 ½ furlongs runs more like 7 furlongs at Kentucky Downs, then she ran in the drenched and downpouring conditions at Keeneland. Good excuses? Yes, but the fields have not corroborated the case made. Besides Change of Control, none of the other 22 horses have won since. Will this be the return to her masterful Ellis Park performance?

“I think that's the same kind of setup we're hoping for Saturday,” Foley said. “She ran a really big race that day–you felt good every step of the way.”

Stories of the Pan Zareta's wins almost always begin, “She broke to the lead…” There's no other spot a turf sprint champion wants to be, right?

In Saturday's 56th running of the Queen of Turf's eponymous stakes race, the catbird seat looks to be just off the pace and to the outside. And if things go according to Yes It's Ginger's connections' designs, that's where she'll be sitting.

“Elle Z's awfully quick, you gotta think she'll be in front,” said trainer Greg Foley. “There's one or two other pretty fast fillies also, so we're towards the outside post, that ought to be a great post for her to sit and pounce on them before the other kickers.”

Marcelino Pedroza, a go-to rider for Team Foley, will pilot Yes It's ginger from post 7.

Yes, it's true: Pan Zareta is buried in the infield at Fair Grounds. Stories have it that on the coldest nights in New Orleans, her hooves can be heard pounding the turf track in winning style. But that's not the only past Fair Grounds winner who hopes to return to form this Saturday.

Elle Z, the winner of last year's Pan Zareta Stakes (13.30-1), has not won on turf since. Her races coming in almost mirror her 2020 run-up: overmatched turf effort, disappointing dirt performance, surprise turf win, and then stakes to follow. Only this year, the Keeneland turf course did not cooperate and she is not entering off a win.

“This is a little bit different this year because I gave her a freshening and then tried to run her a couple of times at Keeneland but it was rained off or too soft, so she missed two races,” trainer Chris Hartman explains.

Instead, she ran into Bell's The One, who many believe would have won the Breeders Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.

“I ended up in that race there, which was not intentional,” Hartman said. “I had no intention of running her in that race, but seeing that she hadn't run in such a long time and she was really sharp and everything we decided to give her a spin. It was a really really tough race and she got smacked around in there. Now she's back to her preferred surface and preferred distance.”

Breaking from the rail, Hartman's regular rider Mitchell Murrill has the mount.

Besides Elle Z, according to running style we can assume the ghost of Pan Zareta favors the filly to Yes It's Ginger's inside: Love and Money (Brian Hernandez Jr, post 6). Trained by Cherie DeVaux and owned by Lael Stable, this daughter of More Than Ready has put three lengths over her competition by the ¼ pole in her last two races. Summering in Saratoga, she tried going two turns on the inner turf, including the $120,000 Riskaverse.

“If you fight with her,” DeVaux said, “she does not take well to being restrained, which is why stretching her out didn't work. She gets keen early and then settles down.”

Moving up from first-level allowance company at Keeneland, she will have to face pressure unlike anything she has faced before.

“She has natural speed so she is going to do what she is going to do,” said DeVaux. “If there are horses in front of her, I don't think it's going to bother her.”

Would be a fitting end to this ghost story to see Ghosting Kim flying across the grass late. Drawn at post 9 with her regular rider James Graham up, last out she ran best to lose the photo—losing ground in her closing charge after having to angle out twice from behind traffic.

Or maybe Saturday's winner will find her form from her pedigree. Pan Zareta's tragic demise left us without her progeny to carry on her winning ways. Not the case for the dam Leigh Court who sends out first foal, Advocating from post 4. Winner of the 2016 turf sprint Mardi Gras Satkes, her filly by Uncle Mo will try 5 ½ furlongs on the grass for the first time. Trained by Michael Stidham with three wins out of six races, Advocating has tired in the last furlong going two turns in her last two races.

Elle Z's early speed is the most dangerous–she has the rail and will send.

“She's fast, man. Some of those others might think they're fast. They might enter but they'll be working hard to do it,” Hartman said. “She's fast. The fastest horse on the inside will be ideal.”

But she won't be alone. Look for the 56th winner to come from off the pace and listen for the ghost of Pan Zareta this winter when the New Orleans nights slow to a frost-bitten standstill.

Post time is 4:42 CT for the Pan Zareta Stakes. The nice race card begins at 1:05 CT.

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