Speightstown’s Delegation collected his second career stakes win in Monday’s $150,000 Dominion Day S. (G3) at Woodbine, setting a track record of 2:01.51 for the mile and one-quarter in the process.
Delegation is the third stakes winner in four days for Speightstown, who now has 10 stakes winners accounting for 15 added-money victories in 2013.
Delegation was full of run right out of the gate. Securing the lead on the rail the first time under the wire, Luis Contreras had the 6-5 favorite under a stout hold. He got the first quarter in :24.51, a half in :48.63 and three-quarters in 1:13.34, maintaining a one-length lead down the backstretch.
The pace picked up around the turn, and Delegation simply sprinted away from his foes widening with powerful strides through the lane to shave 0.48 seconds off the track record held by Strait of Dover (2:01.99) when winning the 2012 Queen’s Plate.
“I had an unbelievable trip,” said Contreras. “I could feel the power underneath (me). It’s great to ride horses like this.”
The final margin of victory was 9 1/4-lengths, while the record-setting performance earned him $85,572 for his owner Gary Barber.
“When this horse is on his game, he’s probably as good a horse as I’ve ever trained,” said trainer Mark Casse. “He has an unbelievable stride. To go a mile and a quarter and to keep running the way he did just shows truly how good he is. When he’s on his game he can probably run with any horse in North America.”
It was the sixth win in 12 career starts for the four-year-old, who took the 2012 Durham Cup (G3) at Woodbine in October. Off the board only once in his life, he finished a solid third to Tapizar in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1) at Santa Anita.
The bay Kentucky bred now has bankrolled $537,751, a nice return on the $150,000 paid for him at the 2011 Fasig-Tipton February Select sale of 2-year-olds. Delegation is out of Cindy’s Hero, winner of the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante and a half-sister to the multiple graded stakes winner Fourty Niners Son.
