Bank Sting holds off Battle Bling in Heavenly Prize
Bank Sting persevered past front-running Maiden Beauty and then held off a late run from Battle Bling to win Sunday’s $125,000 Heavenly Prize Invitational by a neck at Aqueduct.
It was another 2 1/2 lengths back to Maiden Beauty in third. Sharp Starr and Truth Hurts completed the order of finish.
The win was the seventh from nine career starts for Bank Sting, a 5-year-old New York-bred daughter of Central Banker. It was her fourth stakes victory from five tries.
Bank Sting was being pointed to the $100,000 Biogio’s Rose, restricted to New York-breds, scheduled for Sunday. But neither the Heavenly Prize, which had been scheduled for Saturday, nor the Biogio’s Rose had enough entrants on their own to be carded. The Heavenly Prize five-horse field had three New York-breds, a Kentucky-bred and an Ontario-bred.
It didn’t matter to Bank Sting, who, under Dylan Davis, stalked the New York-bred Maiden Beauty through six furlongs in 1:13.20. Bank Sting was able to edge clear from Maiden Beauty at the eighth pole and hold Battle Bling, last early under Trevor McCarthy, at bay at the wire.
“She’s gutsy and she has a lot of heart,” Davis said in a post-race interview. “I thought [Battle Bling] was going to overlap her, but she was able to re-engage. She’s smart. She had a little left in the tank and was able to get to the wire first.”
Bank String covered the mile in 1:39.51 and returned $6.30 to win.
Bank Sting won her fourth stakes for Hidden Brook Farm, Joseph and Anne McMahon, and trainer John Terranova.
Tonja Terranova, assistant to her husband John, said Bank Sting is just a determined filly who doesn’t want to lose. Terranova noted that in the La Verdad, a race in January that Bank Sting also won by a neck, Bank Sting came back on after being headed by Eloquent Speaker.
“It’s like she doesn’t want to get beat,” Terranova said. “Dylan said she keeps finding more.”
The Heavenly Prize was one of three wins on Sunday’s card for Davis. He also won three on Saturday’s card and has now opened up a 53-45 advantage over brother-in-law Trevor McCarthy in the jockey standings with nine cards remaining in Aqueduct’s winter meet.