Evershed gets perfect trip en route to Waya victory
:quality(75))
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. − Evershed returned to the scene of her finest hour, a second-place finish in the 2025 Saratoga Oaks Invitational, to register the most important victory of her career, rallying to a three-quarter-length decision over the pacesetting Storm Miami Friday in the Grade 3 Waya Stakes.
Evershed benefitted from an absolute dream trip under jockey Flavien Prat. Breaking alertly from her inside post, Evershed was kept in reserve just behind the 2-1 favorite Storm Miami who, as expected, controlled the early pace over the firm course. Evershed found ample room along the rail to engage the leader nearing the furlong marker before gradually edging away at the end.
Storm Miami had set the pace and succumbed grudgingly in each of her last three starts, all in graded stakes. She turned in another gutsy effort only to suffer a similar fate in the Waya, digging in gamely when headed by Evershed near midstretch before slowing giving way nearing the wire. It was just another neck farther back to the recent maiden breaker Whitethorn who finished best of all to be third.
The victory was the third in eight career starts for Evershed, who is trained by Arnaud Delacour for owner Mark Grier, and came in just her second start since a disappointing eighth-place finish in the Jockey Club Oaks at Aqueduct eight months earlier. The winner completed the distance in 2:15.12 seconds and paid $9.40.
"She’s run her two best races on this track so far, so we’ll have to come back here again next year,” Delacour said after the race. “The idea initially was to run in the [Grade 1] Flower Bowl [on Sept. 26 at Belmont Park] and I was toying with running her here in a two-other-than [allowance] last week going a mile and three-eighths [as a prep for the Flower Bowl], but the race didn’t go. So the Waya was the only option we had left. But that was a great back up, I have to say.”
Delacour said he was obviously quite pleased the way the race developed for his improving filly.
“There was not a lot of pace and Flavien knew that. He had a great post, number one, got her out of there, and was able to get her to settle,” said Delacour. “When I saw the fractions, I thought we were in a great spot behind a very live horse. That was the right horse to follow. So I was delighted.”
John Velazquez, who rode Storm Miami to a second straight graded stakes placing, following a runner-up finish in the Grade 2 Glens Falls four week earlier, said his filly gives her best all the time.
“She did the same thing last time. She was on the lead, you think she is going slow, but she’s pulling and never gets relaxed in front,” Velazquez explained. “She tried. Evershed had a little more horse than I did and that was the difference.”
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.
