NEWS
Gotta Have Her collars Lethal Heat to win Palomar
Posted: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 9:53 PM
by Ed DeRosa
Gotta Have Her earned the first graded stakes victory of her career around two turns with a furious closing rush under Tyler Baze in the $200,000 Palomar Handicap (G2) on Wednesday at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club to nip pacesetter Lethal Heat by a neck.
Lethal Heat ran a winning race in most circumstances, setting fractions of :24.47, :48.95, and 1:12.11 for the 1 1/16-mile race on turf rated as firm. The Unusual Heat filly ran her last 2 1/2 furlongs in about :28.60, but Gotta Have Her had the momentum and eventually the victory after racing mostly at the back of the field until the far turn.
Jenine Sahadi trains Gotta Have her for Richard Masson’s Green Lantern Stables, and the five-year-old Royal Academy mare has come tantalizingly close to notching a stakes win since returning from a eight-week layoff after winning the Las Cingas Handicap (G3) on April 12 at Santa Anita Park on the downhill 6 1/2-furlong course. Gotta Have Her placed in each stakes try off that layoff, but could not net the top prize, including a runner-up finish to Magical Fantasy in the John C. Mabee Stakes (G1) on August 16 at Del Mar.
Gotta Have Her could now head to the Yellow Ribbon Stakes (G1) at the Oak Tree meet at Santa Anita as a final prep for the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf (G1). Another option would be to shorten up to a mile for the Matriarch Stakes (G1) at Hollywood Park.
The only other female to challenge Lethal Heat throughout the race was Wild Promises, a front-running Grade 3 winner who pressed the pace of the eventual runner-up but could not sustain her own bid when flattening out in the stretch.
Favored Carribean Sunset (Ire), second by a head to champion Forever Together last time out, rallied for third but was never a threat to the top two, as she could not keep up with the eventual winner when both mounted their drives turning for home.
Gotta Have Her has won seven of 22 starts and has earned $630,608. Nursery Place and Robert T. Manfuso bred her in Kentucky out of the unraced Rahy mare Winnowing. Nursery Place sold her, as agent, to Green Lantern for $300,000 at the 2005 Keeneland September yearling sale.
For an Equibase chart, click here.
http://www.equibase.com/static/chart/pdf/DMR090909USA8.pdf
Ed DeRosa is news editor of Thoroughbred Times
