Beauly goes last to first in Indiana General Assembly

SHELBYVILLE, Indiana – Jockey James Graham can tell the story of the $100,000 Indiana General Assembly Stakes, which he won aboard 13-1 shot Beauly, in one sentence.

“I broke, took back, dropped the reins, got her settled, and came on home,” Graham said after the race at Indiana Grand.

In truth, it really was not much more complicated than that. But Graham made one key decision, sitting chilly on Beauly at the five-sixteenths pole and hoping to find room. And he did, rallying along the fence without a straw in his path into the homestretch, then slipping inside pace-setting Sky My Sky and beating even-money favorite Linda to the wire by a half-length.

Beauly dropped to the back of a seven-horse field and raced last as Sky My Sky set splits of 23.82, 48.55, and 1:12.55.

“They were going away from me around the turn, so instead of forcing it, I just kind of left her there and hoped, because I knew she’d quicken,” Graham said.

The inside run meant everything. Linda, who was sixth much of the race, got in a touch of midstretch traffic, and as she found her way into the clear about three paths from the fence, Beauly had gotten just enough of an edge to hold her clear.

Beauly stopped the timer in 1:42.27 for 1 1/16 miles on firm turf and paid $28.40 to win. Linda had a half-length on third-place Sky My Sky, who was followed by B Rockett, Queen Caroline, Res Ipsa, and Be Playful. Lovely Loyree, who probably would have been second choice, was scratched, as were Hip Hop N Jazz and Sister Blues.

Brendan Walsh trains Beauly for Rebecca Hillen, and both horse and owner are from England. Beauly debuted last year at age 3 and made seven fairly ineffective starts in England before being purchased at auction last November. Hillen sent Beauly to Walsh, and Walsh, three starts later, turned Beauly, a daughter of Sea the Stars and the Piccolo mare Pickle, into a stakes winner.

“They said she had plenty of talent but she was just tricky mentally, if we could get her right,” Walsh said.

Beauly was all right Saturday.