Laurel: Dance to Bristol makes it look easy in Marshua

Jim McCue/Maryland Jockey Club

Dance to Bristol cruises to a 5 3/4-length win under Elias Peltroche in the Marshua.

In three of her first five starts, Dance to Bristol has needed the photo-finish camera to determine whether she finished first or second. There was no close call in Saturday’s $100,000 Marshua Stakes at Laurel Park, however.

The Charles Town-based Dance to Bristol turned a tight race entering the stretch into an easy victory as she collected her second stakes victory in the six-furlong sprint for 3-year-old fillies.

Ridden by her usual jockey, Elias Peltrouche, Dance to Bristol ($3.60) blew past tiring pacesetter Double the Energy early in the strech run and finished 5 3/4 lengths in front of 11-1 outsider Terralba while covering the six furlongs in 1:01.05. Defy Gravity was third at 14-1 in a field reduced to six horses by a pair of scratches.

Dance to Bristol, who got up by a nose in an overnight stakes in New York in early December and was beaten a nose and a neck in her first two career races against maidens, is now 3 for 7 overall. She has finished worse than second just once.

“She’s just growing up a little,” winning trainer Ollie Figgins II said. He added he felt no need to instruct Peltrouche how to ride Dance to Bristol, a daughter of Speightstown owned by Copperville Farm.

“. I never tell him how to ride her.  She has the speed to put herself wherever she needs to be,” Figgins said.

The trainer set no immediate objective for Dance to Bristol, but indicated she will likely continue to sprint.