Charlene's Dream turns away late challengers to take Beverly D.
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE?q=100)
Like her trainer, Ed Moger Jr., the 4-year-old filly Charlene’s Dream began her career on the Northern California circuit, but it was at Colonial Downs in Virginia where Charlene’s Dream scored her most important win, capturing the Grade 2, $500,000 Beverly D. on Saturday.
Be Your Best bobbled at the start before seizing an early lead, but Javier Castellano, riding Charlene’s Dream for the first time, let his mount cruise up to take command into the first turn, and that, it turned out, was the race.
Down the backstretch and going past the five-furlong marker in this 1 3/16-mile grass contest, the two leaders raced some seven lengths ahead of Beach Bomb, who sat third. The half-mile split on a sun-baked course came up a very manageable 48.30, and Castellano let Charlene’s Dream quicken the pace. She did so willingly and seriously, going her second half-mile nearly three seconds faster than her first, in 46.60, and by the midway point of the far turn, chasing Be Your Best and even more so Beach Bomb and Spanish Eyes all were off the bridle, their riders urging them forward just to keep up.
Be Your Best might have gotten to within a half-length of Charlene’s Dream at the quarter pole, but Charlene’s Dream had turned her back by the three-sixteenths. Spanish Eyes finished with interest, eventually nailing Be Your Best for second, but Castellano had given them all too much to do, Charlene’s Dream home by 1 1/2 lengths. Duvet Day rallied up the rail to finish just behind Be Your Best in fourth as Beach Bomb faded to fifth.
“I tried to watch a replay of her last three races and I learned a lot in the process,” Castellano said. “She seemed like a horse who doesn’t like to take too much a hold. I let her roll the first part of the race and it worked out perfect.”
Charlene’s Dream clocked 1:53.74 over a firm course and after taking heavy late betting paid a surprisingly low $7.20. Charlene's Dream earned a career-best 95 Beyer Speed Figure.
Charlene's Dream, by Qurbaan out of Clara Kelly, by War Front, campaigns for Domeyko Taylor and has been a good horse from the start of her career. She won three of four, including two stakes, racing at Golden Gate Fields as a 2-year-old of 2023, won the $150,000 Horseshoe Indianapolis Stakes last summer, and kicked off her 2025 season with a win in the Grade 3 Galorette at Pimlico. Charlene’s Dream, purchased at a 2-year-old auction for just $35,000, ran below her best finishing fifth last out in the Anchorage Overnight at Churchill, but Moger had her on song for the Beverly D.
The race marked a high point for trainer as well as horse. Moger, who began training in the Bay Area during the mid-1970s, came into this year with four graded stakes wins during his long career, and before Charlene’s Dream came along, his last such victory came when Stilleto Boy upset the 2023 Santa Anita Handicap. With Bay Area racing defunct and southern California struggling, Moger began racing in Kentucky during 2024. He came to Virginia with his stable star and won the Beverly D.
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