Come Dancing waltzes in Ruffian

Come Dancing walked out of the gate Sunday at Belmont Park and proceeded to run away with the Grade 3, $250,000 Ruffian Stakes.

The odds-on favorite swept past pace-setting Frostie Anne at the three-furlong marker and waltzed to a 6 ¾-length win in the one-turn dirt mile for older fillies and mares.

Pacific Wind emerged from between horses approaching the quarter-pole and might have mounted a run at her second straight Ruffian win had Come Dancing never let her get close.

Come Dancing had the outside post in a five-horse field and started poorly, failing to push strongly out of the gate and requiring a couple strides to find her footing. Frostie Anne came through inside her to run a quarter-mile in 23.76 seconds and a half in 46.97 as Come Dancing, always in the bridle while not pulling excessively, waited in second. Franco didn’t make her wait long, either, making an early move as though he were on a 1-4 favorite facing just four foes – which he was.

Pacific Wind already had come under encouragement before the quarter-pole while Come Dancing raced in hand, and when Franco loosened his hold after straightening for home, she quickly put distance on Pacific Wind. Come Dancing wavered slightly inside and outside her line through the final furlong -- perhaps out of boredom – and cruised past the finish much the best. She ran one mile on a sloppy, sealed track in 1:36.54 and paid a pittance - $2.60 to win. Pacific Wind finished almost six lengths clear of third-place Pink Sands.

Carlos Martin trains Come Dancing for Marc Holliday’s Blue Devil Racing Stable. Blue Devil also bred the 5-year-old mare, a daughter of Malibu Moon and Tizahit, by Tiznow. Come Dancing was entered and withdrawn from the Keeneland September yearling sale of 2015 and made a winning debut 14 months later at Aqueduct.

She didn’t race again for more than a year, but made a splash in her comeback run, romping in a first-level Aqueduct allowance race that produced an eye-catching 96 Beyer Speed Figure. Come Dancing had another half-year layoff than ended last summer but has done little wrong since, finding the nine furlongs of the Grade 1 Beldame last fall beyond her distance range (at least at the time) before coming within a half-length of the high-level sprinter-miler Marley’s Freedom in December.

Come Dancing’s win April 5 in the Distaff Handicap, run over a laboring track, produced a 7 ¾-length win and a 114 Beyer Speed Figure, the highest Beyer so far this year in North America. Come Dancing produced a solid raw time Sunday over a surface far from glib. The Beyer Figure clocked in at "only" 103, but Come Dancing held her strong form, dominating again, and if all goes well it would be logical to see her race next in the Grade 1, $700,000 Ogden Phipps on June 8 at Belmont.