Gate to wire for Boston Park

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - After winning a 5 1/2-furlong allowance race last June, Boston Park ran in seven consecutive stakes without success.

But, trainer D. Wayne Lukas is nothing if not persistent, so Boston Park made his eighth straight stakes start in Saturday's Whirlaway Stakes at Aqueduct. And, as it so often has in Lukas's Hall of Fame career, persistence paid off as Boston Park went gate to wire to win the Whirlaway by one length before 6,761 at Aqueduct.

Grey Comet, the previously undefeated New York-bred who was coming off a victory in the Count Fleet Stakes, finished second, 2 1/4 lengths ahead of fellow New York-bred Go Rockin' Robin. Mustang Jock finished fourth.

Torre and Zim, the 4-5 favorite, was pinched back at the break and was never involved, finishing a disappointing fifth in the six-horse field.

Though his connections expected him to be in a tracking position, Boston Park outbroke the field and dragged Shaun Bridgmohan to the front entering the first turn. Boston Park set fractions of 24.19 seconds and 48.12 while on an uncontested lead. Around the turn, Mustang Jock and Grey Comet took a run at Boston Park, but turning for home, Boston Park opened up again under encouragement from Bridgmohan and won comfortably.

Boston Park, an Overbrook Farm homebred son of 1996 champion 2-year-old Boston Harbor, covered the 1 1/16 miles in 1:44.74 and returned $16.40 to win.

"I didn't want to go to the front, but he broke so sharp, he was there and I didn't want to take that away from him," Bridgmohan said.

Assistant trainer Peter Hutton, who saddled the horse for Lukas, said he expected Boston Park to be third in the early stages. Hutton said he is not sure if Boston Park will stay in New York or ship back to Florida, where he began the year with a sixth-place finish in the Holy Bull Stakes.

Chuck Lopez, the rider of Torre and Zim, said he was bothered at the start by Mustang Jock. "I got pinched," Lopez said. "I tapped him on the shoulder to at least get him head and head, but I could never get him in the hole all the way. I decided to [take] a little bit of a hold of him and sit on him. After that, he just never got going."