Magical Feeling sent at 27 to 1 shellshocks everyone by winning the Barbara Fritchie Handicap at Laurel Park
The Kentucky bred 6-year-old mare, Magical Feeling, pulled off a 27 to 1 stunner in the Grade 2, $200,000 Barbara Fritchie Handicap at Laurel Park on 18 February, 2012, going over a distance of seven furlongs on dirt. Making her graded stakes debut she managed
to overhaul the two favourites of the race to notch her first graded stakes victory.
Trained by Allen Iwinski for Peter E. Blum Racing, Magical Feeling is the daughter of Empire Maker, out of mare Magical Mood by Forestry, under jockey Roberto Alvarado Jr. she was wrangled back early on after breaking.
Magical Feeling saved ground while coming off the pace nearing the lane, when suddenly she angled four wide, and had gathered enough momentum.
Roberto Alvarado Jr. pulled the strings methodically, as he has been the mare’s jockey for quite some time now, drifted her on the outside leaving the eighth pole under left handed pressure. The mare responded coming into the stretch, as she was straightened
to go all out.
She had two runners to contend with, the 7 to 10 favourite of the race, Nicole H, and the second choice runner, C C’s Pal. It was a matter of closing ground on the front-runners, as Magical Feeling under right handed encouragement went all out to split the
two favourites to surge in the final jumps, and clock the time of 1 minute and 22.36 seconds on the fast dirt.
“I knew I had a lot of horse under,” said Alvarado. “She knows where the wire is. I won the same kind of race in the stakes at Monmouth. Coming off the pace and making a run through the stretch and getting up in the final jumps. At the eighth-pole I started
getting confident. She kept getting closer and closer. When we got there I had no doubts we would win it.”
Iwinski was proud of his mare, and said she is an unbelievable mare with a winning attitude, He further went on to say that Magical Feeling tries hard every time she’s on the track, and today she proved how good she is against top notch females.
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