Belouni rebounds with Woodhaven Stakes triumph
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OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Belouni overcame some traffic at the head of the lane, found open space in upper stretch and split horses to win Saturday’s $100,000 Woodhaven Stakes by 1 1/2 lengths at Aqueduct.
Inflation Nation, who raced up on the pace along with longshot High Strike, held second by a nose over Neural Network. Regal Kingdom, Winters Lion and High Strike completed the order of finish.
Belouni, a French-bred son of Fast Company trained by Chad Brown, won for the third time in six career starts. He had finished seventh of eight in the Colonel Liam Stakes at Gulfstream on March 4, but rebounded nicely on Saturday.
Sitting an up-close third and on the inside under Jose Ortiz behind a soft pace, Belouni wanted to go when his stablemate, Neural Network, began to move outside of him approaching the top of the stretch. At that point, Belouni was behind Inflation Nation, ridden by Dylan Davis, and Ortiz had to tap on the brakes. In the lane, a large opening developed between High Strike and Inflation Nation and Ortiz guided Belouni through it.
Belouni, owned by Michael Dubb, Madaket Stables, Michael Kisber, and William Rucker, covered the mile in 1:37.69 over firm turf and returned $4.30 as the even-money choice.
When Belouni felt Neural Network to his outside, “he jumped on the bridle and he wanted to go forward,” Ortiz said. “I had Dylan there, I touched his heels a little, thankfully nothing bad happened and he recovered quickly. Then I found a good seam on the inside and he was very professional.”
Ortiz said the turf at Gulfstream was quite firm when Belouni ran over it this winter and the field didn’t come back to him in that race.
“I talked to Chad this morning, he was very confident that the horse showed he’s better than his race at Gulfstream so I was very confident coming into this race,” Ortiz said.
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