Double Crown holds off Green Light Go to win Roar Stakes
After taking 231 days off between his winning debut and his second start, Double Crown needed just another three weeks to become a stakes winner, registering a half-length victory over the odds-on favorite Green Light Go in Saturday’s $75,000 Roar Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
Double Crown won his career debut last Sept. 8 at Laurel Park, wearing down Ournationonparade in the final strides of the six-furlong maiden dash. Dean and Patti Reeves purchased both horses privately shortly after the race. The Reeveses left Ournationonparade with trainer Bernard Houghton, and he won a Maryland-bred stakes five weeks later. Double Crown, on the other hand, would not race again for nearly eight months, finally returning to finish second in an entry-level allowance race on a sloppy track here on April 26.
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Both Ournationonparade, who lost his rider in the April 26 dash, and Double Crown are trained for the Reeveses by Kathy Ritvo and met for a third time in the 6 ½-furlong Roar.
With apprentice Cristian Torres aboard, Double Crown was reserved within easy striking distance of early pacesetter Cajun Casanova while racing between horses leaving the backstretch. Double Crown ranged up to challenge the leaders four wide while still reserved entering the stretch, lugged in briefly near the furlong grounds, took command, then held safe Green Light Go.
A Grade 2 winner, Green Light Go stalked the pace from the outset, steadied briefly between horses while challenging the leaders nearing the furlong marker, and fought on gamely once he recovered. With Verve, winner of the Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream in his previous start, rallied to finish third, another length farther back. Ournationonparade raced forwardly from outside, dropped back after a half, and finished a well-beaten fourth in a field of just six 3-year-olds.
A claim of foul by jockey Luis Saez aboard Green Light Go against the winner for interference in early stretch was quickly dismissed by the stewards.
Double Crown, a gelded son of Bourbon Courage, covered the distance over a fast track in 1:16.57 and paid $7.60.
“He’s coming along and doing good,” said Ritvo, who won the 2017 Roar for the Reeveses with Classic Rock. “We were just hoping he’d run like he was training. It was a big improvement last time. I’m not sure he loved the mud, but he still ran well. Today I was just hoping he could hold on. It looked like Cristian was pretty confident, though.”