Late Night Pow Wow wins Laurel's Twixt, now targeting Ballerina
Coming off a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Madison in April at Keeneland, Breeze Easy LLC’s Late Night Pow Wow returned to her typical dominant form Sunday, turning back a challenge in the stretch to win the $75,000 Twixt by 1 ¼ lengths at Laurel Park.
The Twixt, a seven-furlong sprint for fillies and mares 3-years-old and up, was the first of five stakes races on Laurel’s Summer Sunday Stakes card.
Late Night Pow Wow, a 4-year-old West Virginia-bred daughter of Fiber Sonde, clicked off her 12th win in 14 lifetime starts and remained a perfect 4-for-4 at Laurel.
Trained by Javier Contreras at Charles Town Races, the dark bay or brown runner turned back early pace pressure from long shot Stormologist and then held off a resolute outside charge by 2017 Twixt winner Shimmering Aspen to score in a time of 1:22.03.
The victory came on the 58th birthday of co-owner Mike Hall, who said Late Night Pow Wow now will be considered for the seven-furlong Ballerina (G1) on Aug. 24 at Saratoga Race Course.
“What can we say about the girl?” Contreras said. “She makes my job easy, loves the track and we expected a result like this today. She’s so game and came up to the race so good.
“It was slow fractions (23.31 seconds for the opening quarter-mile, 46.08 for the half-mile) for these types of horses.”
Sent off from Post 4 at odds of 1-2 under regular rider Freddie Peltroche, Late Night Pow Wow paid $3 to win in a field of eight.
Shimmering Aspen finished second, 1 ½ lengths ahead of Cairenn.
Shimmering Aspen boldly moved to the winner three-wide on the turn and into the lane but simply could not keep pace as Late Night Pow Wow ran strongly to the wire on the inside.
The victory was the seventh stakes in the career of Late Night Pow Wow, including the Barbara Fritchie (G3) in February at Laurel and the Charles Town Oaks (G3) last fall.
“It made a nice birthday present,” Hall said.