Gallorette: Ozone Bere up in time

BALTIMORE - Ozone Bere, making her first start in this country, benefited from a ground-saving ride from Javier Castellano and got up in the final strides to beat Humoristic and capture the Grade 3, $100,000 for older female turf runners.

Ozone Bere ($17.40) rallied from seventh in the final quarter-mile and won by a head, with Humoristic a length in front of Art Fan. Ozone Bere completed 1 1/16 miles on firm turf in 1:42.08.

"She hesitated a little, but then everybody split out, and I took my best shot," Castellano said. "I was very lucky with the trip."

Castellano "gets all the credit for winning the race," said Nicholas Balachard, assistant to Ozone Bere's trainer, Christophe Clement. "He timed it perfectly and was able to get through on the inside when he needed to."

Ramon Dominguez, who rode Humoristic, lamented that he did not hug the rail "so that the winner would have go to around me."

"Then maybe the outcome would have been different," Dominguez said.

My Typhoon, the 8-5 favorite, loomed menacingly at the top of the stretch, but lost her punch in the final furlong and wound up fourth in her first start since taking the Mrs. Revere Stakes at Churchill Downs in November.

"She flattened out," said Edgar Prado, who rode My Typhoon. "She bobbled a little at the top of the stretch. There's not much excuse."

Ozone Bere, who was bred in France, won 8 times in 15 starts in her native land, largely at provincial tracks. According to Balachard, she arrived in Florida shortly after her final race in France in January. She was racing with Lasix for the first time on Saturday.

Jean-Claude Seroul owns Ozone Bere, 4, a gray daughter of Verglas.