Tepin Earns first G1 Win in Just a Game
Fresh off her first graded stakes victory, Tepin made it back-to-back wins as she moved up in class to take the Grade 1, $700,000 Longines Just a Game for older fillies and mares on Saturday at Belmont Park.
Trained by Mark Casse for Robert Masterson, Tepin benefited from setting a comfortable pace to take the Grade 2 Distaff Turf Mile on the Kentucky Derby undercard in her previous start, but was forced to rate off the pace in the Just a Game as last year's winner Coffee Clique assumed control of the early lead.
With Coffee Clique and Discreet Marq running in tandem on the front end through moderate splits of 24.87 seconds for the opening quarter-mile and 49.44 for the half, Tepin sat perched three-wide with a watchful eye on the front-runners.
Turning for home, the Christophe Clement-trained Discreet Marq shed Coffee Clique but was confronted in mid-stretch by Tepin, who surged by past the eighth pole and held off a late charge by Filimbi to prevail by a half-length.
"We broke good but we were outside so I let the two horses in front just go ahead and then settled in third on the outside in the clear," said winning jockey Julien Leparoux. "She's got a big heart. Every time I asked her she was going and she fought to the end. She kept digging and digging. She has a nice kick. On this kind of ground right now today it was a little soft so they don't show as much kick, but she's got a big heart. She keeps on going and wins nicely."
Tepin, who is 3-for-3 in 2015, completed one mile on a Widener turf course labeled "good" in 1:35.65.
"We're excited," said Casse. "We're going to go to Saratoga for the first time in a long time. When you win a Grade 1 in front of a Belmont Stakes Day crowd, it's pretty exciting."
The 4-year-old filly by Bernstein returned $11.20 on a $2 win wager and became a millionaire with the winner's share of $420,000.
Graded stakes winner Filimbi, trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, finished three-quarters of a length in front of Discreet Marq in third. The Mott-trained Lady Lara was fourth, followed by Sandiva, Coffee Clique, J Wonder, Ball Dancing, Baffle Me and Photo Call.
Source: NYRA (Sean Morris)