Dover: Sorella captures Matron for sophomore trotting fillies

Hambletonian Oaks champion Sorella was a 1:53 1/5 winner in Thursday's $163,050 Matron Stakes for 3-year-old trotting fillies at Dover Downs for driver Yannick Gingras and trainer Nancy Takter.

The complexion of race changed before the start when Hypnotic AM came up sick and had to be scratched, and then was further altered when Hambletonian winner Ramona Hill (Andrew McCarthy) broke just after the start. With those two foes out of the picture, Ab'sattitudexpress (Tim Tetrick) went to the point from post six and chopped out an opening quarter in 26 3/5, but Sorella and Gingras pressed on two-wide and took over the top spot after that marker.

After she had seized control, Sorella got away with soft middle-half fractions of 56 1/5 and 1:25 as Crucial (David Miller) could only offer a tepid first-over attempt out of fourth. With that easy pace, that meant a sprint for home was on in the final quarter, and Sorella kicked home in 28 1/5 to seal the deal, defeating Guinevere Hall (Dexter Dunn), who rallied from second-over, by a length and a half. Ab'sattitudexpress wound up third, followed by Love A Good Story (Andy Miller) and Crucial.

A daughter of Muscle Hill, Sorella is owned by breeder Elmer Fannin in partnership with Crawford Farms Racing and Brent Fannin. Sorella is now a ten-time winner from 23 career starts, and she has now pocketed $848,362. She was the second choice and paid $5.40 to win.