Aqueduct: Coup de Grace just gets up in Bay Shore

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Back to one turn, back to the winner’s circle for Coup de Grace.

After a disastrous result in the Grade 2 Holy Bull Stakes at 1 1/16 miles at Gulfstream Park in his last start, Coup de Grace cut back to seven furlongs and showed a new dimension by coming from off the pace to outfinish Oliver Zip by a nose and win Saturday’s Grade 3, $300,000 Bay Shore Stakes at Aqueduct.

Oliver Zip, who also came from off the pace after two front-running wins, finished second by a half-length over a slow-starting Kobe’s Back, the 6-5 favorite. He was followed, in order, by The Admiral, Charleymillionaire, Financial Mogul, Favorite Tale, and Loki’s Vengeance.

The win was the third from four starts for Coup de Grace, a 3-year-old son of Tapit owned by Rick Porter’s Fox Hill Farms and trained by Chad Brown.

Coup de Grace had won a six-furlong maiden race last November at Aqueduct and a first-level allowance race going a mile at Gulfstream in December. In both races, he was attending the pace.

Saturday, according to jockey Javier Castellano, Brown wanted to have Coup de Grace come from off the pace. With the plethora of speed horses in this field and a bad break when he got bumped by Financial Mogul leaving the gate, an off-the-pace trip was easy to work out.

Castellano had Coup de Grace in fifth position down the backside while Favorite Tale set the pace chased first by Oliver Zip then Loki’s Vengeance and The Admiral through a quarter in 22.55 seconds and a half-mile in 45.27. Oliver Zip, under Rajiv Maragh, settled in fourth after the opening quarter.

Turning into the stretch Oliver Zip came four wide while Coup de Grace came five wide. In the final furlong, Coup de Grace was able to narrowly outfinish Oliver Zip, who was trying seven furlongs for the first time in his sixth career start.

“We tried to do something different today, we tried to settle the horse and come from behind,” Castellano said. “There was a lot of speed today; he didn’t break that sharp but it worked out great for me. I was able to relax behind the horses and he finished very strong today.”

Coup de Grace covered the seven furlongs in 1:23.19 and returned $16.20 to win.

Corey Nakatani, the rider of Kobe’s Back, said his horse slipped coming out of the gate, which resulted in him spotting the field several lengths.

“He broke kind of hard and it slipped away from him,” Nakatani said. “He’s a horse that obviously has a lot of talent. He ran at Oaklawn went back home, came back here, did a lot of traveling; he may not have run his best race.”