Zandon rallies to edge Smile Happy in Blue Grass Stakes

Lexington, Ky.

Zandon is the sort of horse who seemed to need a fast pace ahead of him. But on a drying Keeneland track that was kind to closers Saturday, he did just fine.

Only a maiden winner coming into the race, Zandon (2-1) banged his way through traffic at the top of the stretch, lengthened his stride, ran past late leader Smile Happy (9-5) with 120 yards to go and finished a 2 1/2-length winner in the Grade 1, $1 million Blue Grass Stakes.

The victory qualified the $170,000 Flatter colt owned by Jeff Drown for the Kentucky Derby. It was quite an effort, considering that Zandon was last of 11 midway through a race that was being run at a pace of only 24.04 and 48.39 seconds through the first quarter-mile and half-mile.

“I was bit further back than I wished I would be,” jockey Flavien Prat said. “After that I was traveling well. The pace was a bit slow, but I was traveling super, and I was able to save ground. It was just a matter of finding a gap and getting a clean run from there.”

There really was not much of a gap turning for home. Rather than try to slip inside Golden Glider (59-1), Prat tipped out and sideswiped Trademark (51-1) to find that gap. From there, it was just a matter of getting past the new leader.

Smile Happy also brushed past a rival – in this case, early leader Emmanuel (5-1) – when he took the lead at the top of the stretch.

“He got a little tired there in the end,” Smile Happy’s trainer Kenny McPeek said. “We’re going to take a peek at how much water he drinks and how exhausted he is. It was a good race for a horse that hadn’t run all that much.”

Where Smile Happy might have looked gassed at the end of the 1 1/8 miles on a track that had gone from sloppy to muddy to good, Zandon looked at the end of the race like he was just getting started.

“I wasn’t feeling good going down the back side,” winning trainer Chad Brown said after watching the race on a video feed at Aqueduct. “It seemed like he got shuffled halfway through the race, and he was in a difficult spot. But I had a lot of confidence in this horse, and I’m just so proud of him.”

Emmanuel lingered enough to finish a distant third, 6 1/4 lengths behind Zandon.

“It seemed like he was in a good rhythm,” his trainer Todd Pletcher said. “He just flattened out a little bit that last part.”

Golden Glider stalked the early pace and finished another half-length behind in fourth. Trademark finished his bumpy trip in fifth.

Zandon’s winning time was 1:50.35 after Emmanuel was clocked at three-quarters of a mile at 1:12.72 and Smile Happy for the first mile at 1:37.86.

“I wish we would have had a stronger pace,” Prat said. “It would have been even better, but it seems like it doesn’t really matter.”

Zandon heads now to the Derby, and so does Mo Donegal, who won less than a half-hour earlier in the Wood Memorial (G2) at Aqueduct. That is a familiar track to both horses. Pletcher was reminded they were the exacta on Dec. 4, when Zandon missed by a nose trying to catch Mo Donegal in the Remsen (G2).

“The Remsen is holding up well, yeah,” said Pletcher, who also had a Kentucky Oaks runner anointed Friday when Nest won the Ashland (G1) at Keeneland. He was quick to point out that Nest came from another Grade 2 prep at Aqueduct.

“The Remsen and Demoiselle maybe might start getting some respect.”

If not now, perhaps in four weeks at Churchill Downs.

Matt Shifman at Aqueduct also reported for this story.