WinStar’s 2010 Belmont S. (G1) champion Drosselmeyer returned to the scene of his greatest triumph to win the $60,000 One Count S. on May 15, a little less than a year since the son of Distorted Humor took the third leg of the Triple Crown.
The Bill Mott trainee was making his third start of 2011, and the 4-year-old chestnut colt produced a game effort to win the 1 1/4-mile contest. Tracking in third while under a tight hold for the first six furlongs, Drosselmeyer squeezed along the rail at the three furlongs mark, when there were four horses vying for the lead. The eventual winner and Birdun, also trained by Mott, separated from the group, and those two battled down the stretch until Drosselmeyer gained the upper hand in the final sixteenth of a mile to prevail by a neck.
“He broke a little slow, but he picked up the bit right after that,” said winning jockey Jose Lezcano, aboard for the first time. “When I asked him, he responded, and he kept going. He likes the distance. The longer, the better.”
Drosselmeyer improved his record to 4-3-2 from 12 starts and earned $36,000 to lift his bankroll to $843,170. To Lezcano’s point, all of his wins have come at a mile or more.
Aaron and Marie Jones bred Drosselmeyer in Kentucky from their multiple Grade 1-winning mare Golden Ballet, a six-time stakes winner in California who was never off the board in 10 career starts.
