Princess Of Sylmar stuns rivals to claim Longines Kentucky Oaks
Princess Of Sylmar stunned her rivals in the Longines Kentucky Oaks (Grade 1) at Churchill Downs in the United States of America on Saturday, May 4, 2013. She was not considered to be one of the favourites, but took her team by surprise in the end.
There were some decent runners lined up for action in the all important competition and everyone expected to witness a classic competition. However, no one would have predicted an upset in the end.
According to the bookies, the best chances of victory were with Dreaming Of Julia, who is a quality performer and has made her team proud on several occasions before. Therefore, she was given the highest odds for victory and the punters risked a lot of money
in her favour too. All of them would have been terribly disappointed though, as they lost a lot of money today.
This is the first time that Dreaming Of Julia failed to make it to the top three, as she ended up in fourth place overall. Prior to this, she had won four races and finished as a runner up and in third place once each.
However, she was unable to weather the storm from Princess Of Sylmar, who entered the competition with a starting price of 39 to 1. She did not get off to a good start and struggled to match the speed of her rivals. Despite that, she continued to fight hard
and kept on gaining positions with the passage of time.
Eventually, the three-year-old filly claimed the top spot by just half a length, making her team and fans proud.
Her trainer Todd Pletcher stated, “We're pleasantly surprised with her effort and her win. We didn't much like her first breeze here but her second one was much better done. She's a good filly, we knew that all along, and we took her out of her natural running
style last time. This time she made that good run and got it done.”
Speaking of Dreaming Of Julia, he added: “She lost it out of the gate. She got creamed coming out of there and it is hard to overcome that sort of thing. She tried hard to make it up and I thought she ran very courageously. But it was too much to ask.”
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