SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Horacio De Paz entered four horses in Wednesday’s $125,000 Suzie O’Cain Stakes at Saratoga, but all he needed to win the race was one, Awesome Czech, who exploded off stablemate Red Burgundy’s honest pace to an impressive 2 3/4-length victory over Brocknardini in the 1 1/16-mile turf test for 3-year-old New York-bred fillies.
The Suzie O’Cain was the third start of the year for Awesome Czech, who finished fourth against open company in the Wild Applause to launch her 3-year-old campaign before coming back to defeat older statebred allowance company when stretching out to 1 1/16 miles here four weeks later. She was even better making the third start of her form cycle Wednesday.
With regular rider Manny Franco aboard, Awesome Czech rated in fourth in the run down the backstretch, about a 10 lengths off the pace of Red Burgundy who posted splits of 23.51 seconds and 47.75 for the opening half over the firm course. Awesome Czech commenced her bid on the far turn, came four wide into the stretch, readily ran down the tiring leader a sixteenth out, drew off, and was not seriously threatened thereafter.
Brocknardini lagged near the rear of the field to the stretch and then finished willingly near the inside to best the winner’s stablemate Munny Grab by a head to be second best. Red Burgundy was a tiring fifth, while De Paz’s fourth entrant, Downtown Channel, finished seventh.
Summer Whirl, a somewhat surprising 2-1 favorite off a maiden win here just 18 days earlier, lagged at the rear of the field during the early going and was never a factor, rallying belatedly to check in a nonthreatening fourth.
Awesome Czech is a daughter of Mendelssohn trained by De Paz for owner Barry Schwartz. She completed the distance in 1:42.94 and paid $9.70.
“She’s been training so good, [Franco] breezed her last week and she was doing so well. She’s really in a routine now,” De Paz said. “I didn’t want [Red Burgundy] to go that fast, but it did really set up for Awesome Czech. I asked Manny after if she wanted more distance because it looked like she galloped out very well, and that’s something for us to play around with later on.”
In spite of her big effort in the Suzie O’Cain, De Paz said it might not have been her best performance to date. He cited her close, second-place finish in the Tepin Stakes in her 2-year-old finale instead.
“That open-company race kind of impressed me. I think she fits open company and hopefully we can get her back into an open-company stakes down the road,” he said.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.