Heaven's Runway owner has better luck in Fall Highweight
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – The 32-1 upset victory by Heaven’s Runway in Thursday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Fall Highweight Handicap at Aqueduct was an emotional one for co-owner Michael Imperio and his wife, Elizabeth Loftus.
The win came five years to the day after their homebred General Maximus suffered a fatal breakdown in the same race. Loftus, who goes by the nickname Libby, did not want to run a horse in that race again. According to Imperio, Loftus didn’t know Heaven’s Runway was running Thursday until she heard Imperio scream as he watched the race on television.
“I didn’t tell her until after the race,” Imperio said. “She heard me screaming in the den. She said, ‘What are you screaming about?’ I said, ‘We just won.’ She said, ‘I’m glad you didn’t tell me until after the race.’ ”
Imperio wasn’t at the track Thursday because he had 20 people at the house for Thanksgiving. He said that had that not been the case, he would have gone to the track by himself. Loftus, Imperio said, would not have gone because of what happened to General Maximus.
“That was our favorite horse, we bred him,” he said. “That was like Libby’s baby.”
Imperio shares ownership of Heaven’s Runway with Michael Dubb. At the insistence of trainer Rudy Rodriguez, Imperio partnered with Dubb when Rodriguez claimed the horse for $62,500 at Saratoga on Aug. 28. Imperio remembers Rodriguez telling him that he thought he could win the Fall Highweight.
“He said, ‘I really like this horse,’ ” Imperio recalled.
Heaven’s Runway hadn’t won since upsetting the Hockessin Stakes at Delaware Park on July 18, 2015. That day, he was 10-1, the longest price in a four-horse field. He was the longest price Thursday in the Fall Highweight, where he carried 123 pounds, 11 fewer than Stallwalkin’ Dude, whom Heaven’s Runway beat by a neck.
Heaven’s Runway ran six furlongs in 1:10.19 and earned a career-best 102 Beyer Speed Figure.
Rodriguez said Friday that Heaven’s Runway came out of the race in good order. He said he would look at the $100,000 Gravesend on Aqueduct’s inner track Dec. 18 but also mentioned that the horse runs well fresh, so he could give him more time.
David Jacobson, the trainer and co-owner of Stallwalkin’ Dude, said his horse would point to the Gravesend.