Bracket Buster destroys rivals in Pegasus triumph
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Bracket Buster faded off the pace to finish seventh in a May 3 allowance race run over a sloppy track at Churchill Downs. But if Bracket Buster disliked the slop in Kentucky, he thrived over it in New Jersey.
Well-rated on a slow if contested pace, Bracket Buster busted open the $150,000 Pegasus past the three-furlong marker and coasted home to a seven-length victory Saturday at Monmouth Park. The margin might have been 20 lengths had jockey Axel Concepcion not wrapped up his mount at the sixteenth pole.
Garamond, the 3-5 favorite, broke flat-footed and found himself stuck behind Bracket Buster into the first turn. He pulled hard and over-raced onto the backstretch. After making a minor run at the winner at the quarter pole, he faded to finish last of six.
The Vickie Oliver-trained Bracket Buster ($9.60) made his stakes debut Oct. 27 in the Street Sense at Churchill, finishing fifth, nine lengths behind Kentucky Derby and Belmont winner Sovereignty. Ambitiously spotted in his first start after the Street Sense, Bracket Buster turned in a strong performance when second in the Lexington Stakes behind Gosger, subsequently nipped on the wire in the Preakness. Bracket Buster in that Churchill allowance went the other direction, taking a step back, but his form leapt forward in the Pegasus.
Away alertly, Bracket Buster made the lead in the first 20 strides and went over to the rail, with longshot Wildncrazynight coming alongside through a quarter mile in 24.03 seconds and a half in 48.48. Bracket Buster clearly was going easily, and when Concepcion let him out a notch into the far turn he quickly opened a couple lengths on Wildncrazynight. But the best was yet to come. Straightening for home already well clear, his ears pricked, Bracket Buster blew the Pegasus wide open, putting the race to bed with a half-furlong blitz before Concepcion saved something for another day.
Presumably, that day is July 19, date of the $1 million Haskell Invitational, into which Bracket Buster earned fees-paid entry by virtue of his Pegasus romp.
Wildncrazyguy managed to hold second, with Valentinian a tepid third. Kentucky Outlaw and Barbadian Runner were scratched. The card’s fourth straight front-running winner on a sloppy, sealed surface, Bracket Buster ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:44.64.
Bracket Buster, by Vekoma out of Spring Dance, by Dance With Ravens, campaigns for BBN Racing. Bred in Kentucky by David Baxter, he twice was sold at auction – for $160,000 as a weanling and then for a lesser $125,000 as a yearling. He’s the fourth foal to race and first stakes winner for stakes-winning Spring Dance.
Maybe it was just the slop, a speed-favoring track, and a bunch of no-shows behind him, but Bracket Buster, at least for one day, looked like a graded stakes-class sophomore.
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