After bad start, Halina’s Forte earns hard-fought win in Galway
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – On paper, Halina's Forte towered over the field of four that was left for an off-the-turf edition of the $150,000 Galway Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Saratoga on Saturday. Not only was the main-track-only entrant a stakes winner on the dirt, she was the only stakes winner left in the field, and was coming off a solid graded stakes placing.
But the race played out far harder than it looked on paper, as Halina's Forte stumbled at the break and then needed every bit of her determination and every inch of the stretch to work with for her win. Diving to the inside of pacesetting Baraye - who was also busy fending off Value Area on the outside - in the final yards under Irad Ortiz Jr., Halina's Forte was up by a head in the three-horse blanket finish.
"Four horses and it had to be that close?" trainer Phil Bauer exclaimed, laughing. "Oh my God, you could have put a blanket over it."
Halina's Forte and Ortiz - who came aboard the main-track-only entrant when his first call, Pipsy, was among the several scratches when the race was announced as off the turf Saturday morning - were third, and a little more than 1 1/2 lengths back after that rough start, coming to the top of the stretch. Baraye, who had led through zippy opening fractions of 22.01 for the quarter and 45.43 for the half, showed no signs of quitting, and with Value Area working hard on the outside, Ortiz chose to go for a seam on the rail.
"My heart dropped at the quarter pole, but Irad, he's a magician," Bauer said. "The range of emotions from the quarter pole to the wire was pure depression to pure elation."
Ortiz deflected the credit to the filly.
"She deserves more credit than me, because she's great in there," he said.
Halina's Forte got her head in front of Baraye, who held second by a half-length over Value Area. The top three outdistanced Golden Degree. The time was 1:04.24 for the 5 1/2 furlongs on the main track, rated fast after drying out overnight and throughout a sunny Saturday.
Halina's Forte, a Florida-bred Mitole filly owned by Rigney Racing, has now won four times from nine career starts, with the Galway joining the seven-furlong Ruthless Stakes, in February at Aqueduct, on her résumé. Her three other career stakes placings include finishing third in the Grade 3 Victory Ride on July 4 at Aqueduct. She was flattered when the winner of that race, Emery, came back to run second in the Grade 1 Test Stakes here last weekend.
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