Family ties run deep for homebred Lewisfield

Maryland-bred Lewisfield will be representing the legacy of late breeder and owner Jim Lewis in the Grade 3 Maryland Sprint Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico.

A stakes-winning son of Maryland stallion Great Notion, Lewisfield races as a homebred for Lewis’s widow Linda Zang, an internationally renowned dressage rider, judge, and coach. Zang carried on Lewis’s racing and breeding program following his death in 2012. Lewisfield’s dam, Smart Crowd, was a winning homebred for Lewis, and the gelding is named for a farm founded by Lewis’s father, James F. Lewis, II.

Lewisfield has won five of seven starts and has not missed the board. He comes off a win in the Not For Love Stakes at Laurel.

“We just let him mature and grow up because he’s really a great, big horse,” trainer Jeff Runco said. “That seemed to work out just fine for him because he’s now mature and strong and healthy. It’s a good thing we let him grow up when it was needed.”