With a sweeping move
around the final turn, Augustin Stable’s Emerald Beech overhauled runaway
front-runner Dynaslew at the eighth pole and sailed across the finish line
under a hand ride Monday to win the Grade 3, $100,000 Glens Falls Stakes at
Saratoga Race Course.
The final stakes race of the 143rd meet at the oldest
racetrack in the country concluded with Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard
in the winner’s circle expounding on the virtues of taking time to
develop horses.
At 5 years old, the homebred Emerald Beech has put it all together, and
the Glens Falls was her fourth straight victory and first in a graded stakes
race.
“This is only my second year having her,” said Sheppard,
who won five stakes races at the meet, including steeplechases. “She was
up in Canada.
It takes me a while to figure them out. My training style is to have horses do
well when they get older. A lot of other horses get burned out. They go into
the Triple Crown and get burned out. That’s not my style. I love horses,
and I try to treat them right.”
Jockey Alex Solis showed great confidence riding the winner, reserving
Emerald Beech under a snug hold in sixth place while Kent Desormeaux nurtured
Dynaslew through slow fractions over the soft turf course.
Turning for home in the three-turn, 1 3/8-mile race, Desormeaux cut
Dynaslew loose, but she was no match for Emerald Beech, who ran by her on the
outside to win by 1 ½ lengths. Dynaslew finished 7 ½ lengths clear of
third-place finisher Senada.
Emerald Beech completed the course in 2:21.71 and paid $8.40 for a $2
win bet as the 3-1 second choice in the field of nine.
Dyani finished fourth, followed by Prize Catch, Ainamaa, favorite
Giants Play, Gold d’Oro and Zapparition.
“She handled the softer turf very well here,” Solis said of
the winner. “At Belmont,
she also ran on softer turf and handled it good, as well, so we thought she
would be fine on the turf today.”
Emerald Beech won for the fifth time in 15 starts, improving her
lifetime earnings to $238,838.