Drew's Gold has third consecutive win in Jimmy Winkfield Stakes
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Drew’s Gold had overcome slow starts to win his first two races. On Saturday, he had nothing to overcome as he broke running, put away a pace challenger and rolled to a 4 1/4-length victory in the $97,000 Jimmy Winkfield Stakes for 3-year-olds at Aqueduct.
Clubhouse, who stalked the dueling leaders from third, had to settle for second, three-quarters of a length ahead of Joey Freshwater. Daydreaming Boy and Kool Kathmandu, the latter part of the early pace after stumbling at the start, finished last.
The win was the third in as many starts for Drew’s Gold, a son of Violence owned by James Chapman and Stuart Tsujimoto and trained by Chapman.
Drew’s Gold was ridden to victory by Jose Gomez, the Eclipse Award-winning apprentice of 2022 who was riding his last day Saturday as an apprentice and the five-pound weight allowance that comes with it.
Apprentices don’t get the weight break in stakes, but Drew’s Gold didn’t need any advantage in the Winkfield. He broke running under Gomez, was ridden relatively in hand while outside of Kool Kathmandu through splits of 23.47 seconds for the quarter and 47.81 for the half-mile. Drew’s Gold took charge approaching the quarter pole and was never seriously threatened in the lane.
“He won two back to back, both breaking not the best, so I wanted to make sure he was standing right and let him do whatever he wanted to do,” said Gomez, who won his third career stakes. “He came out sharp today and I was just trying to nurse him along. I knew I was kind of banging heads, but I didn’t want to take too much out of him. I kind of let him do his own thing.”
Drew’s Gold covered the six furlongs in 1:13.09 and returned $5.50 as the 8-5 favorite.
Chapman said he was glad to see Drew’s Gold break so well on Saturday.
“What he was doing was he was getting himself left and he was taking off up the backside and whenever you got to grab a horse it takes something out of them,” Chapman said. “[Today], he was able to ride him in one rhythm, which I think helped a lot. When he broke good, I figured we had a really good chance.”
Drew’s Gold won his debut last May at Churchill Downs, but then suffered a hind leg injury that kept him away from the races until Jan. 28, when he won an allowance at Laurel Park.
With two wins in two weeks, Drew’s Gold will now most likely not run again until the Grade 3, $200,000 Bay Shore Stakes here on April 8, Chapman said.
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