Congrats’ Cash Back kept her unbeaten record intact with a 1 ¾-length victory in Saturday’s $75,000 Melody of Colors for 3-year-old fillies at Gulfstream Park.
The filly was one of three stakes winners on the day for Congrats, topped by Venus Valentine’s scintillating win in the $200,000 Rachel Alexandra S. (G2). At Oaklawn Park, Haveyougoneaway captured the $100,000 Spring Fever S.
The trio has pushed Congrats’ progeny earnings above $1.3 million, placing him second on the 2016 General Sire List. His six stakes winners and seven stakes wins tops all stallions in both categories.
Cash Back, who has a pair of turf wins at Fair Grounds in the past two months, handled the step up into stakes company with ease. The bay filly stalked the pace on the inside, the switched out in mid-stretch and rank by More Royalty in the final sixteenth to win going away.
“I got a very good trip. She’s a nice filly,” jockey Jose Lezcano said of the Brad Cox trainee. “She didn’t have the speed right from the gate but she was sitting in a very good spot and when I asked her to go she went on. I think the grass was a little firmer than she likes. I stayed and waited for something to open and when it did she came running.”
Bred in Kentucky by her owners Richard and Bertram Klein, Cash Back earned $45,000 for victory to double her bankroll to $90,000 from three lifetime starts. The filly is out of Hidden Assets, who had a stakes double of her own Saturday when her daughter Cash Control, by WinStar stallion Pioneerof the Nile, scored in the Daisy Devine S. at Fair Grounds.
