12/10/2011 9:09PM

Hawthorne: Real Power collects first career victory in Jim Edgar Futurity

By Marcus Hersh
Email
Four-Footed Fotos
After beginning his career with five straight losses, Real Power improves to capture the Jim Edgar Futurity.

STICKNEY, Ill. – Illinois-bred maiden-special-weight races at Hawthorne this fall offer a $33,000 purse, but Real Power picked a better spot to win the first race of his career, rallying from last of nine to beat his stablemate Yankee Dealer by one length in the $88,125 Jim Edgar Futurity on Saturday at Hawthorne.

Virginia and Rudy Tarra bred and own both the winner and runner-up, and Chris Block trains the horses. Twelve Hundred, who set the pace as the 4-5 favorite, finished third, 3 ½ lengths behind Real Power and a neck in front of Prince Cheval.

Real Power ($12.60) had begun his career with five losses, the best of them a second-place finish to the talented 2-year-old grass horse Coalport in an Arlington turf race. Second in his two most recent races, Real Power’s two Hawthorne dirt starts had come on sloppy tracks, and Real Power, a son of Powerscourt – Real Deal, was racing on a fast track for the first time. On a cold Saturday in Chicago, the kickback from Hawthorne’s sand-based dirt track was intense, and Real Power hated it, throwing his head in the air while dropping back to last into the first turn.

While Twelve Hundred set a mild pace – 25.03 seconds for the first quarter-mile, 49 seconds to the half – Real Power raced behind his eight rivals, basically running in place until the far turn. It was there that Yankee Dealer, who had raced just in behind the leaders, began to attack, and as he moved up on Twelve Hundred and pushed to the lead in midstretch, Yankee Dealer seemed the likely winner.

But Real Power finally got his feet under him with about three furlongs to run. Jockey Florent Geroux kept him about two paths off the rail until the stretch run, swinging out for a clear path past the three-sixteenths pole, and there, Real Power really got rolling. Finishing far faster than Yankee Dealer, he blasted to the lead in the final half-furlong and was going away at the end. Winning time for the 1 1/16 miles was 1:47.40.