Sandy’s Bolt scored a wire-to-wire win in his Sire Stakes division. The son of Bolt The Duer and White Sand cut fractions of :28.1, :59 and 1:27.3 to score a 6-1/2 length victory in 1:56.2 over Linus and Ideal Artillery, and in the process earned a new life time mark. It was the second Sire Stakes win in a row for Sandy’s Bolt, who is trained by Jose Godinez and was driven by Jason Bartlett. The 1-5 favorite paid a paltry $2.70 to win.
Starting from the rail, Always On The Hunt went down the road to lead at every stanza to score a scant nose win in his division over Level Up in 1:56:1, which was jointly the fastest mile of the afternoon. Always On The Hunt and Level Up duked it out in the lane with 10 lengths of separation on the rest of the pack, and the Ray Schnittker trainee was driven to his first career win by Mark MacDonald. The son of American Ideal and Beachesofcheyenne now has $22,912 in earnings.
Bartlett picked up his second win of the afternoon with Save Me A Dance in the third Sire Stakes division. The son of Heston Blue Chip and Dance Hall Girl followed the winning formula all afternoon, leading from start to finish a length ahead of Slash Brother in 1:56.1. Save Me A Dance also earned his first lifetime win for trainer Andrew Harris and owner Robert Key.
In the final dash, Matt Kakaley deviated from the norm of the day and was content to sit the pocket with Groovy Joe while I Rolled The Dice tripped the timer at every station except the finish line. Groovy Joe was the first to pull past the half to start the outer flow, and tracked the pacesetter before skipping away to win by two lengths in 1:56.4. Groovy Joe went off the heavy 1-2 favorite and paid $3.00 to win. It was the second consecutive Sire Stakes win for the son of Roll With Joe and Chotat Milk.
In Excelsior A competition, the winners were Surreal Sergeant (2:00, Jim Taggart Jr.), Fear The Past (2:01.2 Scott Zeron) and Chief Of Staff (2:01.1, Jordan Stratton). The lone Excelsior B dash was won by Latin King (1:59.1, Tyler Buter).