Alternation through and through in the Oaklawn Handicap
The Pin Oak Stable owned 4-year-old colt, Alternation, continued his dominance of the handicap division with a front running win in the 66th running of the Grade 2, $400,000 Oaklawn Handicap, where he is a perfect 3 in as many starts this season.
Donnie K. Von Hemel trained colt, Alternation, was up against seven other 4-year-old and above colts and geldings to run over a distance of 1 1/8 miles on 14 April, 2012, over Oaklawn Park’s dirt course.
“I don’t think you can measure how satisfying this is,” said trainer Donnie K. Von Hemel. “It’s a race that I’ve been second in, hit the board in and it was always an out-of-town horse that won it. To have a horse, that got the job done is all because of
Pin Oak and their breeding program. We knew this was a crossroads race for him. Now, we know we can look at races like the Pimlico Special, the Stephen Foster or maybe something in New York.”
The Kentucky bred son of Distorted Humor, Alternation took control of the situation on his own after breaking from the gate, and soon after he strut his stuff and started leading the pack.
He continued with a modest pace and carved modest fractions as he covered the opening quarter of a mile in 23.91 seconds, and afterwards reached the half mile marker in 49.30 seconds.
With Luis Quinonez aboard, Alternation was sound and steady swinging off the far turn, but Ron the Greek wasn’t finished as he showed some real pressure tracking down with longer strides in the deep stretch, but his effort wasn’t enough to overhaul Alternation,
but he still finished 2 ½ lengths ahead of the third place finisher, Yawanna Twist.
The final time for the 1 1/8 mile for Alternation was 1 minute and 49.94 seconds, as the highly regarded, the Grade 1 Donn Handicap winner, Hymn Book finished fourth, and M. Biehler trained colt Stachys finished fifth.
Nehro was expected to turn in a better show, but he was never in contention throughout the race as he finished 6th, as the defending champion from last year Win Willy seventh and Don Dulce completed the order of finish.
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