Harrah's Hoosier Park: Lady Chaos wins Breeders Crown 2-Year-Old Filly Trot final

Even-money favorite Lady Chaos kicked off the Breeders Crown for 2020 at Harrah's Hoosier Park with a 1:54 4/5 victory in the $600,000 final for rookie trotting fillies on Friday night.

Mazzarati (Tim Tetrick), coming off a victory in her elimination a week ago, left fastest from post four and clicked off the opening quarter in 27 1/5, but Lady Chaos (David Miller), the other elimination winner last Friday, was two-wide and pressing on at that point, and she would become the new leader before the 57 1/5 half went on the board.

Presto (Yannick Gingras), who started from the trailing post ten, then came with a first-over attack on Lady Chaos, and Miller released her to the top on the far turn, leaving Iteration (Brian Sears) in the first-over position. They raced that way to the 1:26 three-quarters, but Iteration kept coming on the rim and grabbed an advantage over Presto in upper stretch.

Iteration was unable to finish it off after she hit the front, though, with Lady Chaos and Mazzarati both speeding by in the passing lane in the final eighth of the mile. Those two battled to the wire, but Lady Chaos had the jump and kept in front to the wire, prevailing by a neck. Splash Blue Chip (Ake Svanstedt) got third, with Im A Diamond Babe (James Yoder) fourth and Hello I Love You (Joe Bongiorno) back in fifth.

"Everybody is going to try and get position and take shots. It's expected," said Miller, who won his 25th Breeders Crown final. "The trip actually worked out good. I got parked around the first turn, but she got to the lead and relaxed. Yannick came at her pretty hard, and that filly was coming at her pretty hard last week, so I followed her around the turn and into the stretch. My filly had a lot of trot finishing."

Lady Chaos, a Cantab Hall filly, is trained by Linda Toscano for owners Richard Gutnick, Thomas Pontone, Joseph Lozito Jr., and Enviro Stables LTD. Lady Chaos, who was bred by Lindy Farms and AV & Son Bloodstock LLC., fetched $125,000 at the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale and now has a record of 6-1-1 from ten tries to go with $560,803 in the bank. Lady Chaos is the first foal out of the Muscles Yankee mare Strong Legacy (1:58 3/5, $6,130), a full sister to Mr. Muscleman (1:51 1/5, $3,582,823). Lady Chaos returned $4.00 to win.

"It all comes down to the Breeders Crown, and it's really exciting. I've loved her from the minute we bought her, and she's done everything right," said Toscano, who now has six Breeders Crown trophies in her collection. "We had a couple of hitches along the way, but she really rose to the occasion tonight. I'm tickled.

"The horses are what drive me here and the horses are what keep me here. I'm blessed to have an incredible group of owners that have confidence in me and trust me with animals like this. I'm couldn't be happier."