Dust and Diamonds heads the Sugar Swirl field
The 4-year-old filly, Dust and Diamonds, formerly raced under the banner of Padua Stable and Richard Santulli and was trained by horseman Steven Asmussen, will make her first start for trainer Todd Pletcher in Grade 3, $100,000 Adena Springs Sugar Swirl at Gulfstream Park on 8 December, 2012, for new owners Stud T.N.T.
Bred in Kentucky by Padua Stables, Dust and Diamonds is coming off a second place finish to winner, Groupie Doll, in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, where she was defeated by the winner by four lengths, which turned out to be one of the best performances of the 2012 Breeders’ Cup.
Dust and Diamonds should also take a lot of confidence from her second place finish in the Filly and Mare Sprint, as she also defeated the third place finisher - grade 1 winning Switch - by four lengths.
After her gritty run in the Filly and Mare Sprint, Dust and Diamonds looms as a prohibitive favourite in the Adena Springs Sugar Swirl.
$900,000 purchase by TNT Stud at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November Sale, Dust and Diamonds has never finished worse than third in nine career starts, as she has dwelled both in allowance claimers, stakes races, and graded stakes races.
"We got her right after she was sold at the November sale and she came in and has trained well," Pletcher said. "She's settled in nicely and has trained forwardly."
Prior to her second place finish in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, the 4-year-old filly by Vindication was coming off three victories on the trot, all of them coming at three different venues without much variation in distance.
She won the an Allowance Optional Claimer at Oaklawn Park going six furlongs on 24 March, 2012, and then went on to win her first stakes victory in the Dashing Beauty Stakes at Del Mar.
Going over six furlongs, she defeated Giant Sensation in second and Romantic Cuvee in third, and posted her hat-trick in the Grade 2 Gallant Bloom at Belmont Park.
"She's very professional, straightforward, all business kind of filly," Pletcher said.
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