Hyper Piper surges to Lookout Stakes victory

Hyper Piper made her stakes debut Friday night at Delta Downs and did what she has regularly done throughout her career – she won.

Pressing pace-setting Pera, Hyper Piper and jockey Tim Thornton took the lead turning for home and went on to a 2 1/2-length victory in the $60,000 Lookout Stakes, a one-mile race restricted to older Louisiana-bred fillies who never had won a stakes.

Hyper Piper covered the distance over a fast track in 1:40.14 and paid $3.80 to win as the 4-5 favorite. Shea’s Lil Shug rallied from seventh to finish second by a half-length over Sweet Pea Mama Ve. Vivacious V.V. stopped abruptly midway down the backstretch, was pulled up, and was vanned off the course.

Trained by Sam David, Hyper Piper is a homebred owned by Keith and Earl Hernandez and John Duvieilh, and has proven a prolific winner. Including a fourth-out maiden win, Hyper Piper has six wins and two seconds from nine starts. She started only twice in 2017, going unraced between February and November, but has hit peak form since returning to action this past fall. During her absence, David took over training the Hernandez and Duvieilh horses from Frank Leggio.

Five-year-old Hyper Piper is by Old Fashioned and out of the Saros mare Filaree.