Hit Parade hangs in, takes Untapable Stakes for third consecutive win
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Hit Parade came through as the favorite in the Untapable Stakes on Saturday at Fair Grounds and won her third race in a row, but only after some anxious moments just before the finish line and for several minutes thereafter.
Hit Parade was all out to get her nose down over Luv Your Neighbor, who somehow managed to come within a head of winning despite jockey Axel Concepcion losing his right stirrup at the three-sixteenths marker. Leaning dramatically left, Concepcion still kept his mount right in the game, Luv Your Neighbor finishing bravely along the fence, Hit Parade outside her and just narrowly better Saturday.
Almost at the same time Concepcion began losing his iron – perhaps even as a result of it -- Hit Parade, reacting to jockey Luis Saez cocking his crop, ducked in from the No. 3 path, closing a gap on Pashmina, whose rider had to check out of his spot. Pashmina, fading at the moment of the potential foul, wound up third but was beaten 4 1/2 lengths, and after a stewards’ inquiry – but no jockey’s objection – the result was allowed to stand.
Hit Parade ($6.60) debuted at Horseshoe Indianapolis finishing third in a turf route maiden race, and second time out trainer Brad Cox and owners Gary and Mary West put the homebred filly in a $50,000 maiden claimer. Rallying into a walking pace and overcoming trouble, Hit Parade won at Churchill that day, then won under starter-allowance conditions when cut back from her two-turn maiden score to a one-turn mile. She probably moved forward at least a touch Saturday, but her leap – at least on the Beyer Speed Figure scale – had come last time.
Saez gave Hit Parade a sweet stalking trip, sitting third as Pashmina, uncontested but slightly keen, went an opening half in a modest 48.08. Luv Your Neighbor, making her two-turn debut while coming back on relatively short rest after a second-place sprint allowance finish at Fair Grounds, ran professionally after a rail-skimming mid-pack trip and might well have won if not for the equipment failure.
Hit Parade ran one mile and 70 yards on a fast track in 1:42.97. Behind Pashmina in third came Have Faith and Actis, and the first five home earned, respectively, 10, 5, 3, 2, and 1 qualifying points toward the Kentucky Oaks.
Cox won the 2025 Oaks with the Godolphin homebred Good Cheer, who went through the Fair Grounds winter stakes series. Hit Parade is by Street Sense out of Wedding Band by Candy Ride, another homebred who has at least started off down the road to the Kentucky Oaks.
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