FORUM Racing’s Birdatthewire turned the tables on familiar rivals Ekati’s Phaeton and Eskenformoney last Saturday with a closing victory in the $250,000 Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Oaks.

Favoured at 8/5, the three-year-old daughter of Summer Bird was steadied in the back straight, but still had enough to rally under urging from Irad Ortiz Jr to win the eight and a half furlong test by one and a quarter lengths at Gulfstream Park.

“I was worried down the backside,” trainer Dale Romans said. “It looked like (Ortiz) lost his irons. He was standing up trying to pull her up. He said she was just getting so rank with him and wanted to go. That was really impressive.”

The filly used a similar closing bid to win the Grade 2 Forward Gal over the same track in January, then was a neck behind in third to Ekati’s Phaeton and Eskenformoney in the Grade 2 Davona Dale in February.

The winner sat in seventh when Ekati’s Phaeton jumped out to an early lead. Stalking Eskenformoney took over after six furlongs and held a half-length advantage in the straight, only to be tracked down on the outside by the winner.

“She was so strong on the backside, I was trying to get her to relax, because she comes from behind - that’s her race,” Ortiz said. “She was pulling, but when I asked her to run, she took off. She was ready. I wasn’t sure she would have energy for the end, but she (did). Not too many horses do that.”

In her third race since relocating from England last year, Swettenham Stud’s Lady Lara claimed her first graded stakes win in the $300,000 Grade 2 Honey Fox at Gulfstream Park last Saturday.

Bred in Ireland by the Shanty Syndicate, the Excellent Art filly, off at 9/2, closed from seventh in the field of nine older fillies and mares to catch Sandiva in the final yards to win by a head. Lady Lara ran the mile in 1min 34.03secs on a turf course rated firm.

The winner had a previous victory in the Pebbles Stakes at Belmont Park in her American debut last October. Junior Alvarado, who was on board for the Bill Mott-trained four-year-old filly in that win, was also in the irons for Saturday’s Honey Fox. In between the two wins, the Irish-bred closed from a distant 13th to cross the wire second in the Grade 2 Mrs. Revere S at Churchill Downs.

“The first time I rode her at Belmont, she showed a lot of class and I knew she could compete with good fillies here in the United States,” Alvarado said of Lady Lara.

“Today I was saving all the ground I could, and as soon as (I got) to the five-sixteenth (pole), I was ready to make a move and I asked her, and she was there for me.”