“Gotta Have her” wins Palomar Stakes
For the second straight year ‘Gotta have her’ has dominated the Grade II Palomar Stakes at Del Mar. History was repeating itself when the horse won the same race again with the same margin between first and second place. The horse with Jockey Mike Smith aboard was the even-money favourite for the 1 1/16 miles race.
Gotta Have Her, had her eyes set on the front of the field right out of the gates and settled well. The first quarter of the race was relatively slow paced at 0:26 1/5 but picked up a little to 0:50. ‘You Lift Me Up’ under Patrick Valenzuela raced ahead to take the lead with Gotta Have Her and ‘Go Forth North’ stalking close behind. The gap between Valenzuela and Mike Smith on Gotta Have Her and Martin Garcia riding Go Forth North started to close before Six Furlongs and 1:13 1/5 into the race. ‘Lilly Fa Pootz,’ also from the Hollendorfer barns, stayed comfortably behind the field waiting for her time and not overexerting herself.
Into the far turn and without much urging from Smith, Gotta Have Her started to edge into the lead. ‘You Lift Me Up’ was letting Valenzuela down and the mount began to lose pace. Gotta Have Her got her head ahead of the leader, as You Lift Me Up continued to fall behind. Go Forth North though was on top of her game and kept a steady pace behind the new front runner, Gotta Have Her. The two kept up their duel right to the wire. At one point the Go Forth North, with the worst odds before going into the race almost gave bookmakers a scare as she inched closer on the favourites first place win. Though in the end Gotta Have Her prevailed and finished in first place by just a neck ahead of the long-shot second place finisher Go Forth North.
You Lift Me Up fell behind Stabblemate Lilly Fa Pootz and ended the race in fourth place. Lilly Fa Pootz, with the second best odds before the race, ran a calm race to the end and finished willingly half a length behind Go Forth North.
After the race Smith said that he was slightly worried about going ahead too early with Gotta Have Her. “You don't want to do that with her. She'll pull herself up.” He also said that he feared the other Hollendorfer, Lilly Fa Pootz, might be catching up and coming in from behind but that didn’t happen. Mike rode Gotta Have Her before in the John C. Mabee Handicap where they finished in third place behind Wasted Tears and Palomars third place finisher, Lilly Fa Pootz. Speaking of the Gotta Have Her, Smith said he like riding mares like her. “This is my kind of race,” said Smith.
Trainer Jenine Sahadi quipped that Palomar stakes was a weird race. Commenting on the slow pace of the race in the start she said that she had been a little concerned when the saw the 26 seconds for the first quarter. “I knew they were going slow and she doesn't have a real huge turn of foot,” Sahadi said. She said that Jockey Mike had apologized for taking the front of the lead early, something that is not a good idea with Gotta Have her.
Runner up, Martin Garcia, after the race praised the winner in the strongest possible words. Although the race ended with Garcia’s mount just a neck behind the winner, the runner up didn’t think the race was actually close. “She was playing with me,” Garcia said. “My filly would move up to her and she'd move away. Then I'd get close again and she wouldn't let us get by. The winner's just too good.”
With the Palomar Stakes and the $90,000 for the winner, Gotta Have Her now has 10 wins in 29 starts and $1,092,608 in earnings. She paid $4, $3, and $2.10. Go Forth North returned $5.80 and $2.60. Lilly Fa Pootz was $2.10 to show.
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