Molly Morgan rides the rail to La Troienne victory
Corey Lanerie made a Borel-like move with Molly Morgan which paid off handsomely to win today's Grade 1 La Troienne Stakes.
The $300,000 La Troienne, for fillies and mares 4-year-olds and upward traveling 1 1/16 miles on the Churchill Downs dirt oval had some graded stakes winners among the nine (9) who broke from the gate.
The 2-1 Post Time favorite was Sheer Drama was coming off a 6 length romp in the G2 Royal Delta at Gulfstream Park. Co-second choices at 7-2 were Gold Medal Dancer, winner of the G2 Azeri at Oaklawn in March and My Miss Sophia, G2 Gazelle Stakes winner last spring at Aqueduct, but it they were not good enough on this day.
The local 6 year old mare (#8) Molly Morgan (5-1) whose jock, Corey Lanerie took advantage of an opening along the rail at the top of the stretch to forge to the lead and hold off (#5) Sheer Drama by ¾ length, who got the better of the Place photo over (#7) Gold Medal Dancer by a head. "I was able to worm my way right over to the inside”, Lanerie explained. “I was following Javier (Castellano) on My Miss Sophia, because I thought he had the horse to beat. It looked like about the 5/16ths pole he wasn’t going anywhere, so I kind of dove inside him. I got some momentum going. I was lucky the rail never shut down on me and I was able to keep the momentum until I got through there."
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The winner, trained by Dale Romans, turned the tables on the favorite, who beat this daughter of Ghostzapper by 8½ lengths in the G2 Royal Delta on March 21st at Gulfstream Park. What made the difference this time around? First, that race was Molly Morgan’s first start of 2015. Secondly, today she had home turf/dirt advantage as she is stabled at Churchill Downs and has now won 6 of 14 starts on this dirt course.
An elated Romans from the Winners Circle said, “The race went well. (Owner) Bill (Cubbedge) let me sit on her this winter as we didn’t turn her out. We just let her stay in training and get her feet back under her. I told Bill this is what helps winning big races down the road. She came with a good performance last time and the race at Gulfstream set her up perfectly for today.”
Molly Morgan paid $13.00 to Win, $5.40 to Place and $3.20 to Show. Sheer Drama returned $4.00 to Place and $2.80 to Show and Gold Medal Danger rewarded Show bettors with $2.80. The $2 8-5 Exacta returned $48.80; $2 8-5-7 Trifecta paid $171.40 and the 8-5-7-1 10 cent Superfecta was worth $58.62.