Already a two-time black type winner, Cash Control got her first graded stakes win Saturday when the 5-year-old daughter of Pioneerof the Nile took the Mint Julep S. (G3) at Churchill Downs by a neck over stablemate Sweet Acclaim (IRE).
Defending race champ Kiss Moon set the pace with a first quarter-mile in :23.57, a half-mile in :46.92 and three-quarters of a mile in 1:11.33 as Cash Control tracked along the inside about 4 ½ lengths behind in fourth.
Zipessa grabbed the lead at the head of the stretch but an opening developed along the inside hedge and Cash Control darted through to draw even. She grabbed the lead after a long drive down the stretch and was able to withstand a late rally by Sweet Acclaim (IRE) to just miss in a photo finish that was determined by the bob of a head.
“I didn’t know it was her (Sweet Acclaim) to be honest; I just heard another horse coming,” said winning rider Shaun Bridgmohan. “It just seems like (trainer Brad Cox’s) other horse would be taken around and my mare was ultra-game. She just stuck her neck out and she really wanted to win today.”
Trained by Cox for Richard and Bert Klein, the home-bred mare is out of Hidden Assets, dam of five stakes winners and a Grade 3 winner herself. Cash Control’s win upped her earnings to $343,600.
Pioneerof the Nile, a leading sire with each of his first four crops, has had a torrid June, with four stakes winners already this month, including Midnight Storm, winner of the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile.
