Lady Eli Stays Unbeaten in the Wonder Again at Belmont
Lady Eli remained unbeaten in five career starts after a half-length victory in the $200,000 Wonder Again at Belmont Park. The Chad Brown trainee defeated a field of eight three-year-old fillies after overcoming some traffic problems on the clubhouse turn.
Lady Eli broke out of the gate alertly and settled into fourth position as Pine Needles set a leisurely early pace of :25.06, :51.10, and 1:15.95, followed closely by Heath. Regular rider Irad Ortiz Jr. had a tight hold on Lady Eli as they sat amongst a pack of horses in sixth place going down the backstretch. Heading into the clubhouse turn it was clear that Ortiz had plenty of horse, but he had no place to go with his filly.
At the top of the stretch Pine Needles and Heath were still running one-two when Ortiz guided Lady Eli through an opening and into the clear in the middle of the track. Finally with room to run, Lady Eli was able to easily mow down the two pace setters who had not changed position the entire race on the very hard and firm Belmont grass course. According to Trakus, Lady Eli covered the final three furlongs in :33.44 and the last quarter mile in :22.23.
Ortiz described the trip, "She's a special filly, she's amazing. I just tried to break out of there and follow the instructions; to try to be a little more close, because the trainer [Chad Brown] told me there's no pace in the race, so I tried but I couldn't get clear. I was covered up most of the way and just when I asked her she picked it up and I got clear and she just did it easy. That filly is the kind of filly when you ask her she takes off no matter where she is. When she got in the clear, she took off, it was impressive."
The final time of 1:49.94 for the Wonder Again came after the slow early pace on the Belmont Park inner turf course where the temporary rails were set at 35 feet to protect the grass closest to the fence for Belmont Stakes weekend.
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Brown was using the Wonder Again as a prep race for the $1,000,000 Belmont Oaks Invitational on July 4. He talked about today’s race and the Oaks, "There were definitely some anxious moments there. It wasn't really the trip I was envisioning, but she worked it out and ended the weekend on a good note. She had to overcome a lot today - stretching out in distance, a slow pace, and she was bottled up for most of the way. Additionally, for her being as big as she is, being bottled up like that is pretty challenging. But she got through, and won geared down again. It's exciting thinking about five weeks from now. With a slow pace like that, you're going to have horses bunched up at the end, but I'm happy with my horse. I feel she won with plenty left, and she won't have any problem getting 1 ¼ miles, especially with more pace."
The betting public made Lady Eli an overwhelming .20-1 favorite in the win pool and the bridge jumpers were out in force pumping $413,021 into a total show pool of $464,538. The result was mutuel payoffs of $2.40, 2.20, and 2.10.