Grandma's Princess wins slow speed duel in Prairie Gold Lassie

Grandma’s Princess won a speed duel and scored a half-length victory in a slowly run edition of the $65,000 Prairie Gold Lassie on Thursday night at Prairie Meadows.

Breaking from post 1 under Ken Tohill, Grandma’s Princess raced a head behind pace-setting Imsortaspecial and just in front of pressing Country Candy through a first quarter-mile in 22.38 seconds before coming through to take a narrow lead around the turn. Country Candy went stride for stride with Grandma’s Princess until upper stretch, where Grandma’s Princess edged away and held safe the favored runner-up.

Christina’s Comet, the 9-5 second choice, lacked early speed and rallied mildly for third while seven lengths farther behind.

Grandma’s Princess, a 7-1 shot, paid $16.60 to win. Despite the big break between the top two and the rest of the field of 2-year-old fillies, the winning time was just 1:13.19 for six furlongs on a night when the racing surface did not appear radically slow.

Grandma’s Princess won her career debut at Churchill in a $40,000 maiden-claimer by nearly seven lengths, but had a troubled trip in the $100,000 Debutante there and finished sixth before breaking through again Thursday. Trained by Randy Morse, the Texas-bred filly is a Tom Durant homebred by Sing Baby Sing and out of the Caller I.D. mare Secret I.D.