Lazy Daisy shipped from her southern California base for Saturday’s $200,000 Pocahontas S. (G2) at Churchill Downs, and the 2-year-old Paynter filly rewarded her connections with a gritty 1 1/4-length win in the 1 1/16-mile contest.
Trained by Doug O’Neill, the Lazy Daisy’s victory earned an automatic berth into the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) as part of the Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” series.
Lazy Daisy, breaking from post four in the eight-horse field, came out on top with His Glory providing solid pressure through the first turn. Those two would trade the top spot for nearly the entire race, until the final sixteenth, when Lazy Daisy dug in to draw clear at the wire.
“When I turned in the stretch, I put my filly close (to His Glory), and she got a little intimidated,” said winning rider Abel Cedillo. “And that’s where my filly kept going, and going. Doug has a lot of good horses, and he knows where to put his horses in a good spot, like a live mount.
Lazy Daisy is owned by ERJ Racing, Great Friends Stable and Tom Mansor. She won her Aug.3 debut at Del Mar, then was fourth in the Del Mar Debutante (G1) before Saturday’s breakthrough win. Her earnings stand at $174,880.
Paynter is a top-five Third-Crop sire with four stakes winners and nine stakes horses overall this year.
Pedigree Notes from the TDN
Lazy Daisy breezed an eighth in :10 1/5 before commanding $39,000 at the OBSAPR Sale. The second graded winner for her sire, Lazy Daisy is out of Romantic Intention and hails from the deeper female family of the good sprinter Valid Expectations (Valid Appeal) and has a foal half-brother by Commissioner.
