Hawkish wins Penn Mile going away

GRANTVILLE, Pa. - Talk about having a huge day, Robert LaPenta co-owns the 3-year-olds Hawkish and Catholic Boy. On Saturday, he won the $500,000 Penn Mile with Hawkish and the $200,000 Pennine Ridge at Belmont Park with Catholic Boy.

Jimmy Toner trains Hawkish, who scored a powerful, runaway victory in the Penn Mile.

“I was originally thinking about the Pennine Ridge for this horse, but Mr. LaPenta wanted to try and keep them separated, so we went to the Penn Mile,” Toner said.

Hawkish and Catholic Boy will likely meet in their next expected race, the $1.2 million Belmont Derby, a 1 1/4-mile turf race on July 7.

Hawkish, was reserved near the back of the field early by jockey Manny Franco. He launched a strong move on the far turn, and looped the three horses battling for the lead with a wide move into the stretch. By the time he hit the furlong pole, the race was basically over.

“He wanted to go early, but I held him,” Franco said. “At the three-eighths pole, I had so much horse I just let him go and went around them.”

Hawkish won by three lengths over Way Early, who rallied from last to earn second by a neck over Coltandmississippi, who also came from off the pace.

Maraud, who pressed the early pace outside Encumbered, finished fourth, a neck behind Coltandmississippi and 1 3/4 lengths ahead of Encumbered.

Coltandmississippi and Maraud are both trained by Todd Pletcher.

At the start, Encumbered stumbled but quickly righted himself and set the pace on a short lead inside Maraud through moderate fractions of 23.24 seconds and 47.62 seconds.

They were joined from the outside by Therapist on the far turn through six furlongs in 1:11.94 before Hawkish came calling.

Hawkish was somewhat surprisingly bet down to favoritism and paid $4.80. He completed a mile on firm turf in 1:35.16.

Hawkish, a son of Artie Schiller is now 3 for 4 in his career. He came into the Grade 2 Penn Mile off an impressive victory over much easier optional-claiming rivals at Aqueduct.

“When you have a horse with this much natural ability, you don’t worry about moving him up in class, you can make those aggressive moves,” Toner said.

Hawkish is out of the Unbridled mare Bridal Memories, who is a half-sister to Winter Memories, whom Toner sent out to win seven graded stakes and more than $1.2 million.

Bridal Memories and Winter Memories are both out of the mare Memories of Silver, an eight-time graded winner of more than $1.4 million, who was trained by Toner.

“Somebody sent me a picture of Memories of Silver’s head and his head, and they are identical,” Toner said. “Whenever I see one from that family, my eyes light up.”