Dirt the key to Thermal's scorching Beyer
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GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Thermal turned up the heat Monday at Lone Star Park, earning a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 106 for her win in the $100,000 Memorial Day Sprint. The Beyer is tied for the third-highest by a filly or mare on dirt this year in North America.
Trainer John Sadler said Thermal has stepped up her game since she began racing on dirt. She won the Memorial Day Sprint by 8 1/4 lengths, covering six furlongs in 1:08.56 on a track that had just been upgraded from good to fast.
“What’s turned her form around a lot is getting her to dirt,” Sadler said Thursday. “I ran her on the grass maybe a few times too many because she was always close, but then she really exploded out over dirt.”
Thermal won her maiden race on the grass but began racing on dirt on a regular basis in October. She has won three of her last four dirt starts, among them a pair of allowance sprints at Santa Anita. Thermal, a daughter of Nyquist and the Tapit mare Full Tap, became a stakes winner in the Memorial Day Sprint.
“She really ran good,” Sadler said. “She obviously can run. What I liked was we got a stakes with her. She’s got really one of the good-looking pedigrees out there, and it’s huge for her to be a stakes winner. Plus, it looks like it’s a stakes win she can build off of. As good as she looked, you would like to think she can get a Group 2 or a Group 3 in her next start.”
Sadler said Thermal returned to her Southern California base Wednesday.
“There’s a stakes at Del Mar, you know, or maybe I can ship her somewhere else,” Sadler said. “She’s been out twice. One time, we went to Canada.”
Del Mar’s offering for Thermal’s division is the Grade 3, $100,000 Rancho Bernardo Stakes for fillies and mares at 6 1/2 furlongs on Aug. 16.
Thermal is an Ontario-bred co-owned by Talla Racing LLC and Sadler. She was the third runner to notch an initial stakes win at Lone Star for the Southern California-based Sadler, joining Park Avenue and Unbridled Mary.
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