Fittingly, Sum of Success wins In Summation in dominant fashion
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Before Sum of Success made his Florida-bred stakes debut on Monday at Gulfstream Park, trainer Bobby Dibona said he could not help but think of him as a potential Breeders’ Cup runner. If the $100,000 In Summation Stakes was a test, the juvenile colt crushed it, powering home to win by 11 1/2 lengths.
Between Dibona’s profound confidence and the colt’s 7 1/2-length debut victory in July, for which he earned an 80 Beyer Speed Figure, bettors were not left with much to puzzle over in the field of six Florida-bred juveniles. Sum of Success was hammered down to 1-5 and paid $2.60 to win the six-furlong dirt sprint.
Jockey Jonathan Ocasio, largely tasked with ensuring a clean start, split rivals early to take an uncontested lead through an opening quarter-mile in 22.06 seconds.
In what easily could have been another leisurely gate-to-wire victory for Sum of Success, the 12-1 outsider It’s Smoking made a race of it on the backstretch. Jockey Edgar Perez took his shot aboard the Ramon Minguet-trained colt, ranging up to challenge the heavy favorite and forcing him to complete a brisk half-mile in 44.64 seconds.
The challenge was short-lived, however, and with minimal urging from Ocasio, Sum of Success easily put away the longshot on the far turn and opened up by six lengths at the top of the stretch. He poured it on from there, completing the race in 1:10.14.
Boyhood Dream, a last-out synthetic winner trained by Nolan Ramsey, picked up the pieces for second, finishing 2 1/4 lengths clear of It’s Smoking.
Bred by Oakleaf Farm in Florida, Sum of Success was sired by Win Win Win and purchased for $165,000 at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.'s spring sale of 2-year-olds in training in April. He is owned by K. Johnston Racing, Michael Iavarone, Jules Iavarone, and Hopeless Stables. There were early suspicions that he might prefer the turf, a belief Dibona said he still holds, but the colt has been too good on dirt to switch just yet.
In the coming months, Dibona noted that there are plenty of spots for Sum of Success in Florida, including several statebred stakes in which he would enter as a similarly overwhelming favorite. The connections could easily choose that path and potentially enjoy a smashing Florida campaign with the juvenile.
But after seeing his colt crush two statebred fields by a combined 19 lengths, it could be hard for Dibona, who has trained three graded stakes winners in his career, to not to take the chance at something bigger. To go for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in October, the trainer would have to quickly prepare the colt to stretch out to 1 1/16 miles.
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