Soul of an Angel announced her presence with authority in the filly-and-mare sprint division after overcoming a slow start and rallying from out of nowhere to score an eye-catching 3 1/4-length victory over 4-5 favorite Beth’s Dream in Saturday’s Grade 3 Princess Rooney at Gulfstream Park.
The impressive performance earned Soul of an Angel an automatic bid into the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 2.
Soul of an Angel was clearly the class of the Princess Rooney field after having captured the Grade 2 Ruffian by nearly five lengths going a mile at Aqueduct in early May and extending Idiomatic until the shadow of the wire before dropping a head decision to the reigning older dirt female champion in the Grade 3 Molly Pitcher at Monmouth 10 weeks later. But she was cutting back to seven furlongs for the first time in the Princess Rooney, the one factor that had trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. concerned coming into the race.
And those fears nearly came to fruition during the early stages of the race.
With Drayden Van Dyke aboard for the first time, Soul of an Angel broke slowly, then quickly lost contact with the rest of the field in the run down the backstretch. She began to advance to closer contention near the inside on the turn, angled out to the center of the track to continue her bid entering the stretch, leveled off upon settling for the drive to finish full of run, and readily overtook Beth’s Dream inside the sixteenth pole to win going away.
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Beth’s Dream brought a four-ace win streak into the race and a record of eight victories in 10 career starts over the track. She raced in perfect striking position off the early pace of Cousin Kristi, easily took command on the final turn, settled into the stretch with a seemingly comfortable advantage, but proved no match for the winner. Her stablemate, the 61-1 Battle Cry, finished another 2 1/2 lengths farther back in third.
Soul of an Angel, purchased privately by the partnership of C2 Racing and Agave Racing earlier this season, covered the distance on a fast track in 1:23.23 seconds and paid $6.40.
“She acted a little restless coming over to the paddock, tossing her head a little, which had me concerned because she’s usually not like that,” said Joseph who watched the race from Parx, where he ran several horses on the rich card there. “In the first quarter, I was wondering if she was going to get pulled up. I expected her to be back there shortening to seven furlongs, but I never thought she’d be that far behind and for a moment I started thinking this was a bad experiment. She looked like she just wasn’t into it. After the slow start, instead of moving forward, she detached herself and dropped even farther back.”
Joseph said he began to get a little encouraged when he saw his filly’s chiclet starting to move forward on the screen and after finally seeing her come into the picture midway on the turn.
“At that point I thought maybe she had a chance, although I still felt she probably had too much to do and was going to finish second,” Joseph admitted. “Then she leveled off and the rest was history. I think we’ve finally found out what she wants to do. She’s a one-turn specialist. And in the Breeders’ Cup, there should be more speed and an even faster pace for her to run into.”
Fawkes wins two stakes
The Princess Rooney was the third of four stakes decided on Saturday’s card at Gulfstream Park, with two of the three undercard events won by trainer David Fawkes. The first was with Reef Runner ($.4.20), who rallied to a two-length victory in the $95,000 Bob Umphrey Stakes, and the second with Charlie’s Wish ($8.40), who closed out the program capturing the $100,000 Ginger Punch. Both races originally were scheduled on the turf but were ultimately switched to the synthetic Tapeta track.
The lone 2-year-old stakes on the day was won by Crazy Frazy ($7.40), who rallied from well back to a 1 1/4-length decision over longshot Rafid in the $95,000 Aventura going a mile over the main track.
Rainbow 6 hit for $345K
The 20-cent Rainbow 6 was hit on Saturday, returning $345,600.26, one day before a scheduled mandatory payout of the pool on Sunday. The winning sequence included the Princess Rooney, Bob Umphrey, and Ginger Punch, with the large payoff keyed by Rouki, who returned $102.80 after winning the third leg of that sequence.
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