Dickinson upsets Lady Eli in the Jenny Wiley
Dickinson ran down the odds-on favorite Lady Eli to win the $350,000 Jenny Wiley (G1) by a head to give trainer Kiaran McLaughlin and owners Godolphin Racing LLC their fourth victory of the day at Keeneland. It was Dickinson’s third straight graded stakes victory of this year, while Lady Eli was making her 2017 debut.
McLaughlin joined Bill Mott and Todd Pletcher as the only trainers to ever win four races in a day at the Lexington, KY, track. His four wins came with a dazzling maiden victory by Tasteful in race 4, a dirt allowance with Zennor in race 6, Watershed then took the Ben Ali (G3), and finally the Jenny Wiley which was run at race 10.
Today Dickinson beat a very strong field in which every horse had a stakes victory with seven of them earning a graded stakes victory, including four in grade ones, two grade twos, and one in a grade three. In total the field had won 46 of their 89 career starts, that’s a 52% win rate.
Catch A Glimpse, who was making her second start of the year, sprinted out of the gate to take the early lead, a position from which she has had a great deal of success in the past. The west coast invader Illuminant settled in second about a length behind the leader. Dickinson ran in third a couple lengths behind in the early going along the rail, while Lady Eli was in sixth position about four off of the lead.
The preliminary fractions were steady at 23.74, 48.05, and 1:12.63 and for those six furlongs the entire field stayed in the same positions. As they hit the lane, Irad Ortiz Jr. moved Lady Eli out to the four path as she rallied for the lead. Lady Eli took the lead down the stretch with the familiar posture of her head cocked to the right towards the grandstand.
At the same time Dickinson was still on the rail, and as Lady Eli took the lead, rider Paco Lopez had to make a decision when the quarters got tight on the fence. Lopez had to grab hold of Dickinson in order to get to the outside of Lady Eli. From there he asked her for run and she had the winning move as Lady Eli was drifting out a bit coming for home.
“I had a little trouble,” said Lopez. “I wanted to go through on the rail and it opened up a little bit but I couldn’t get through. When the other horse (Lady Eli) passed me, we got room and I still had a lot of filly.”
The second place rider, Ortiz added, “It was a perfect trip; I just got beat. She might have been waiting on horses. Maybe she moved a little too early.”
The five-year-old mare Dickinson, who is a daughter of Medaglia d’ Oro, upped her career record to 13: 7-1-2, which includes 5 wins in 6 tries on the grass. She has now earned $604,316.
As the 6-1 second betting choice, Dickinson returned $14.40, 4.40, and 3.60 for a $2 across the board wager. Lady Eli (3-5) completed the $2 exacta, which paid $31.20. Quidura was able to get up for third place finishing up a $2 trifecta that yielded $191.20.
McLaughlin summed up his magical day, “For Godolphin, it’s a great day, and she’s just a nice filly. We had trouble – and it still worked out. Just unbelievable to win four at Keeneland, especially ending on a Grade 1. We’ll probably look at New York on Belmont Day, a mile (in the $700,000 Just A Game-G1). She’s doing great.”