Happy American edges pair of familiar rivals in Louisiana Stakes
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
Happy American captured his first graded stakes, outgaming both Mr Wireless and Forza Di Oro in a stirring stretch duel and winning Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Louisiana Stakes by a neck at Fair Grounds.
Mr Wireless finished second by a neck over Forza Di Oro, duplicating the top-three finish in last month’s Tenacious Stakes over the same track.
Ridden by James Graham, Happy American, about six lengths off the pace down the backside, rallied five wide in the lane and had to run hard to get the narrow decision over Mr Wireless, who rallied from fifth and outfinished the pace-setting Forza Di Oro.
The victory was the fifth from 16 starts for Happy American, a 5-year-old gelding by Runhappy owned by Ben Lothenbach and trained by Neil Pessin.
“He’s just been getting better,” Pessin said. “He came out of the last race super. I almost had to put a lip chain on him just to cool him out after the last race. He’s a horse on the improve.”
Graham said Happy American gave him multiple moves from the three-furlong pole home.
“We quickened up really, really well,” Graham said. “I got some pressure on my outside at the three-furlong pole so I had to go a little sooner than I wanted to but we quickened and we quickened again.
“They ran home. We didn’t stop running, we kept finding, finding and finding. He found a new gear and prevailed.”
Happy American covered the 1 1/16 miles in 1:45.33 and returned $10.
The next race in the Fair Grounds older male dirt series is the Grade 3, $250,000 Mineshaft Stakes at 1 1/16 miles on Feb. 18. There is also the Grade 2, $500,000 New Orleans Classic on March 25.
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