Stonestreet Stable's Cavorting (Bernardini) came from well back and bound clear late to score an easy 2 1/2-length victory in Saturday's GI Longines Test S. at Saratoga. “It's a great win,” said winning trainer Kiaran McLaughlin. “Grade I wins are hard to come by and it was a great team effort. It's great to win for [owner] Barbara [Banke] and her team also. The Grade I wins are most important for fillies, and it's great she's by Bernardini, who stands at Darley, who I train a lot of horses for. It's a win-win for everybody.” Last year's champion juvenile filly Take Charge Brandi (Giant's Causeway), making her first start since winning the Jan. 31 Martha Washington S., set a moderate pace to upper stretch before fading badly and finishing 10th and last.
Cavorting was unhurried out of the gate and raced at the tail of the field as Take Charge Brandi rushed up to set the pace through fractions of :23.21 and :46.21. Cavorting inched closer along the rail on the turn and swept out to the middle of the track for running room at the top of the stretch. Bar of Gold assumed command and opened a clear lead, but her advantage was short-lived as Cavorting was finding her best stride and reeled in that foe in the final sixteenth before striding home a confident winner.
“I thought it would be a faster pace early, but it worked out well,” said trainer Kiaran McLaughlin. “I knew she was running and was hoping she would get space to run. She normally doesn't like a lot of dirt in her face, but she was covered in dirt today. Irad [Ortiz, Jr.] rode a great race and she ran huge. She deserves a Grade I win and she got it. She's a very nice filly.”
Bar of Gold, a 15-1 outsider, was producing a breakout performance Saturday after a troubled sixth-place effort in the June 6 GI Acorn S. and a fourth-place finish in the July 11 GIII Delaware Oaks.
“We wheeled her into the Acorn off of a couple of New York-bred wins and she got annihilated basically at the start,” explained trainer John Kimmel. “I think he engaged a little early and she just had a bad trip. Then we marched her down for her first two-turn race and I thought she made a winning move there. She broke the track record that day and looked like she got flat the last sixteenth of a mile; I thought maybe just shorten her a little bit. She looks like her pedigree says run all day, maybe this is what she'll do this year. Maybe next year she grows up a little bit, she'll be able to carry herself a little further. She got me screaming a little bit. This was a good race. I was reminiscing about my first Grade I win, the Test with Twist Afleet.”
Tabbed a 'TDN Rising Star' after an 11-length debut victory at Belmont last July, Cavorting returned to capture the GII Adirondack S. in her second outing. She tired to seventh after setting the pace when stretched to a mile in the Oct. 4 GI Frizette S. and resurfaced with a dull ninth-place effort at that same distance in the Feb. 21 GII Davona Dale S. She regained the winning thread when reverting to six furlongs last time out with a 3/4-length victory in the June 5 Jersey Girl S. at Belmont.
Cavorting's dam Promenade Girl, who sold for $1.125 million as a 5-year-old at the 2007 Keeneland November sale, brought $335,000 while in foal to War Front at the 2012 Keeneland November sale. Her then-weanling colt by Stay Thirsty sold for $240,000 at last year's Keeneland November sale, while her then-yearling filly by War Front brought $290,000 at the Keeneland September sale. The mare, who was a graded stakes winner and multiple Grade I placed on the racetrack while racing for her breeder Sondra Bender, produced a colt by The Factor this spring and was bred back to Uncle Mo.
Saturday, Saratoga Race Course
LONGINES TEST S.-GI, $500,000, SAR, 8-8, 3yo, f, 7f, 1:22.81, ft.
1–&CAVORTING, 118, f, 3, by Bernardini
1st Dam: Promenade Girl (GSW & MGISP, $678,990), by Carson City
2nd Dam: Promenade Colony, by Pleasant Colony
3rd Dam: Dance Review, by Northern Dancer
($360,000 Wlg '12 KEENOV). O-Stonestreet Stables
LLC; B-Swettenham Stud (KY); T-Kiaran P.
McLaughlin; J-Irad Ortiz, Jr. $300,000. Lifetime
Record: 6-4-0-0, $662,000. Click for the
eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Werk Nick Rating:
A+++. *Triple Plus*.
2–Bar of Gold, 116, f, 3, Medaglia d'Oro–Khancord
Kid, by Lemon Drop Kid. O/B-Chester & Mary R.
Broman, Sr (NY); T-John C. Kimmel. $100,000.
3–By the Moon, 120, f, 3, Indian Charlie–By the Light,
by Malibu Moon. O-Jay Em Ess Stable; B-Samantha
Siegel (KY); T-Michelle Nevin. $50,000.
Margins: 2HF, 1 3/4, 1 1/4. Odds: 2.80, 15.40, 3.70.
Also Ran: Irish Jasper, Kathballu, So You Say, Angela Renee, Wonder Gal, Pleasant Tales, Take Charge Brandi.
Click for the Equibase.com chart, the TJCIS PPs or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree. VIDEO, sponsored by Fasig-Tipton.
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