Healthy Addiction wins Clement Hirsch

DEL MAR, Calif. - Maybe Healthy Addiction should stay in training next year instead of being sent to Kentucky to be bred. The 5-year-old mare is certainly having a career-best season.

Sunday at Del Mar, Healthy Addiction ($9) won her third stakes of 2006 in the $300,000 . Ridden by Victor Espinoza, Healthy Addiction ran 1 1-16 miles in 1:42.92, holding off a determined stretch run from Louisiana invader Happy Ticket to win by 1 3-4 lengths. Star Parade finished third in the field of five fillies and mares.

Healthy Addiction was always near the front, tracking the outsider Maryfield through fractions of 23.15 and 46.76 seconds. Healthy Addiction took the lead from Maryfield on the turn and led by a length at the eighth pole before widening her advantage.

"Everything is tentative," trainer John Sadler said of Healthy Addiction's future. "She got a perfect trip. We had a sprinter in front. It was where we wanted her to be."

Owned by Pamela Ziebarth, Healthy Addiction has won 9 of 21 starts and $882,837. Earlier this year, she won the minor Paseana Stakes and the Grade 1 Santa Margarita Invitational Handicap. The Grade 2 Hirsch was Healthy Addiction's sixth stakes win of her career.