Fritchie win adds to Nixon's strong meet

Less than 24 hours after Justin Nixon saddled Edward Seltzer and Beverly Anderson’s homebred Hibiscus Punch to upset last Saturday’s Grade 3 Runhappy Barbara Fritchie Stakes at Laurel Park, he grabbed the opening race at Laurel with the Seltzer-owned Lucre.

This has been a consistent theme. Going into Thursday, Nixon had prevailed with his last three starters and is clipping along at an 8-for-15 rate since Nov. 15.

The Fritchie was Nixon’s first graded win, but he’s no stranger to taking down big pots. His Coltimus Prime captured the $500,000 Prince of Wales in 2014, the second jewel in Canada’s Triple Crown.

Hibiscus Punch began her career at Woodbine with trainer Kelly Callaghan. She then went to Seltzer’s Solera Farm in Florida and was evaluated by Curtis Garrison.

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“I think she was just a little body sore, nothing serious,” Nixon said. “When I talked to Curtis about the filly before he sent her up in October, he didn’t give me any alerts that anything major was wrong. A few little issues and just giving her the time to mature.”

Dismissed at 41-1 in the Fritchie, Hibiscus Punch stayed close to the fast pace set by favorites Hello Beautiful and Dontletsweetfoolya before sweeping to command under Horacio Karamanos.

“I was a little concerned because they were rocking pretty good and the plan was to sit back and make one run,” Nixon said. “At the same time, when we hit the three-eighths pole I could see she was running and Karamanos had a lot of horse. When he made that move at the quarter pole, I thought we had a shot.”

The Fritchie was postponed one week due to bad weather. Nixon believes the extra time aided his mare.

“It certainly didn’t hurt,” he said. “She had a fairly busy schedule from the Willa On the Move – back in three weeks to the allowance, and then it would have been four weeks to the Fritchie. When she ran in the Willa On the Move, she had a pretty good break, about six weeks, and she ran lights out.”

Nixon reports Hibsicus Punch came out of the Fritchie “great, eating up and doing everything right.” Her next scheduled race is the Grade 1, $300,000 Madison Stakes at Keeneland on April 3.