Believe You Can fought her way home in the Fair Grounds Oaks against rival Summer Applause
Larry Jones trained 3-year-old filly, Believe You Can, showed how tough she is when it comes to those all out, going for the wire while tugging at each other duels in the stretch when she held on gamely en route to a head victory over the odds on choice,
Summer Applause, in the Grade 2, $480,000 Fair Grounds Oaks over at Fair Grounds Race Course and Slots’ dirt course, going over a distance of 1 1/16 miles on 31 March, 2012.
Brereton C. Jones homebred filly was coming into the Fair Grounds Oaks off a fourth place finish in the Grade 3 Rachel Alexandra Stakes also at Fair Grounds Race Course at about 1 1/16 miles on 25 February, 2012, to Summer Applause.
The rivalry is heating up, as Believe You Can reignited it in Fair Grounds Oaks, and the two will come together for a possible rematch in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks, with both trainers aiming Churchill Downs as the next spot for their fillies’.
Believe You Can bagged a hard earned victory, which was packed with duels, but each time she showed immense determination and never backed off from any challenge. Under jockey Rosie Napravnik, Believe You Can fought with pace setter, Colonial Empress, and
the dueled carved the fractions of 22.88 seconds for the quarter mile and 46.47 seconds for the half mile.
It all fell in her favour leaving after the sixteenth pole, as the filly went on the outside in the stretch and under some strong encouragement she barely got home and defeated her Rachel Alexandra Stakes tormentor, Summer Applause.
“That was probably the most uncomfortable pace set-up scenario that I could have thought of and it was definitely a very hard first half of a race for the filly," Napravnik said. "It just shows how much talent and how much class she’s got. I wish I could
have gotten her a better trip but she pulled through for us and she’s a race horse."
In the end it was just Summer Applause and Believe You Can in the stretch, as the third place finisher, Disposablepleasure, finished another nine lengths adrift of the runner up.
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