Personal Ensign Stakes (Grade 1)

LETRUSKA galloped back to the winner’s circle after delivering a gutsy victory in Saturday’s Grade 1 Personal Ensign before Irad Ortiz Jr. stopped her at the finish pole facing the infield.

He watched himself on the screen as Letruska stood with her ears forward, tilting one ear back to listen to the cheers from the crowd behind her.

Turning to her left, Letruska was met by her trainer, Fausto Gutierrez, and her groom, Jose Diaz. As Gutierrez patted his mare and placed a hand on her bridle, Ortiz leaned down and embraced the trainer, celebrating the third Grade 1 win this year for the star mare.

“To win a race at this level, I’m very happy,” said Gutierrez. “A race at this level is complicated, but we never had a question about running at Saratoga.

“The first part of the race was very important. We took the lead and took control. It was 46 seconds (for the half-mile) and I think today was a good fraction. After that, she gave the extra of what she had to give.”

Letruska staved off Bonny South by a half length. Royal Flag was a head back in third. The final time for the mile and half a furlong was 1m 49.15secs.

“She does all the hard work, I just pilot her,” said Ortiz. “She’s easy to ride.”

Owned by St. George Stable, Letruska has showcased her talent at five racetracks in four states in 2021.

“This is a Grade 1 with very good horses in good form,” Gutierrez said. “It’s not easy and I’m very pleased with the way she ran. Every place she’s run, all the horses she’s run against, and she’s fast. She fights and is a real racehorse. She’s special.

“She has big character and a big heart. For a horse to have this speed at this distance, they need to have a strong heart. Not for nothing, but she’s one of the top horses in the country.”

The Personal Ensign victory marks another important milestone for Gutierrez, who moved to a full-time operation in America from Mexico last year. In Mexico, he was based year-round at one of the country’s only racetracks, Hipodromo de las Americas.

As he contemplated his transition to the US, uncertainty loomed over how the pandemic would affect his stable, with the seasonal nature of many American racing circuits requiring trainers to ship horses often.

Always wanted

“Being here in America is something I have always wanted,” Gutierrez said. “When I was in Mexico, I was a leading trainer for the past 10 years. I decided that at my age, it was time to try running here.

“I thought for a moment ‘maybe we should go back,’ but I can’t. It’s a lot of travelling when you’re at this level, but Letruska is such a strong competitor and this is where she belongs. The satisfaction of her winning makes it worth it.”

Gamine keeps galloping

Ballerina Handicap (Grade 1)

IT was suggested to Michael Lund Petersen that he seemed overly nervous in the period leading up to the Grade 1 Ballerina Handicap, which was manifested by smoking, pacing, nervous laughter, –you name it.

“I was,” he said in the winner’s circle after his filly Gamine did what she always does: outrun her competitors virtually every step of the race. “You always just want her to do well. She got out of the gate like we wanted her to; that’s always a nerve-racking thing.”

Even a worrier like Petersen could breathe easy after fractions of 23.20secs and 45.68secs. At that pace, Pegasus couldn’t catch Gamine, who earned an automatic berth in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.

“She shows up and gets it done every time. That’s what good horses do,” said jockey John Velazquez, who is now seven-for-eight on Gamine, the only loss coming in last year’s Kentucky Oaks, a race in which she finished third and was eventually disqualified for a positive betamethasone test.

With Gamine on the rail in the seven-furlong Ballerina, bettors trying to beat the 1/5 favourite may have seen a glimmer of hope. But even if Petersen were worried, Velazquez was not.

“She’s fast,” he said. “I know she is going to come out of there fast and get a good position. Then you hope when you ask her to run, she runs, and that’s what she did.”

“Just to be blessed with a horse like this, it’s crazy,” said Petersen, a native of Denmark who co-founded the wildly successful Pandora jewellery franchise.

Saturday was Petersen’s first visit to Saratoga, but it marked a triumphant return for Gamine, who won the Grade 1 Test Stakes by seven lengths last year, seven weeks after a smashing 18-length score in the Acorn at Belmont.

Medina Spirit returns successful in Del Mar

AWAY from Saratoga, the Bob Baffert-trained Medina Spirit remerged with a win in last Sunday’s $100,000 Shared Belief Stakes at Del Mar.

The ungraded race has seen such top horses as Accelerate (2016), Battle Of Midway (2018) and Improbable (2019) use it as a prep race for better things in recent years. This year’s mile race was a rematch between Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit and Santa Anita Derby winner Rock Your World.

Rock Your World beat Medina Spirit by over four lengths in the Santa Anita Derby but lost all chance with a horrendous trip in Churchill Downs.

Medina Spirit prevailed by a length and a quarter under John Velazquez in a good battle with Rock Your World and is expected to start in the Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing on September 25th.

It was Medina Spirit’s fourth victory in eight starts, pending the official outcome of the Kentucky Derby.