Woodbine: Big Band Sound makes Play the King win look easy

Michael Burns

Big Band Sound, under Tyler Pizzaro, wins the Play the King, the local prep for the Woodbine Mile.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario — Big Band Sound kicked in strongly in the stretch from a stalking position under Tyler Pizarro to romp in Sunday’s Grade 2 Play the King Stakes, which is a prep for the $1 million Woodbine Mile.

Big Band Sound ($7.80) prevailed by 2 1/2 lengths over a wide-closing Riding the River. Delegation was another half-length back in third, and Artic Fern wound up fourth after dueling with Stormy Rush through slow fractions. After tracking the leaders, favored Smokey Fire faded to finish a distant trailer. 

The Danny Vella-trained Big Band Sound collected $120,000 of the $202,400 purse for owner Kendel Standlee . He was coming off a break which followed four consecutive runner-up finishes in stakes on turf and Polytrack.

“He came into the race very well,” said Vella. “Hopefully, we did the right thing and freshened him. He ran four very tough races in the spring, and we thought a fresh horse in the fall would be worth having.”

Right One and Bear Tough Tiger were scratched.