Imaginationthelady gets head down in blanket finish to win Edgewood Stakes
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A week ago, the good 4-year-old colt Gosger got hurt in a morning workout, an injury severe enough he won’t race again. Thursday, Gosger’s trainer, Brendan Walsh, passed along the news that his Kentucky Oaks entrant, Bella Ballerina, had come up with a minor injury and was out of the Oaks. Oaks Day itself began with a Walsh-trained odds-on favorite taking a narrow defeat.
So, by the time the Grade 2, $600,000 Edgewood Stakes rolled around at 7:42 p.m. Eastern, Walsh’s state of mind bore some resemblance to the darkening skies at Churchill, and when four horses, two trained by Walsh, hit the wire nearly as one at the end of the Edgewood, Walsh expected the worst. His luck turned. Imaginationthelady, getting a perfect trip under Tyler Gaffalione, was up by a head. And Walsh just missed a one-two finish, Lion Lake pipped for place by pacesetting Tam Tam.
“After the week we’ve had, it was good to get that one,” Walsh said.
Imaginationthelady was heavily bet from the start, going off just short of 2-1, paying $6.88 to win.
“I think she was justifiably 2-1,” Walsh said.
Can’t argue with that in the end – even if Imaginationthelady barely paid out.
Tam Tam set the pace under Junior Alvarado, who said he didn’t expect to wind up leading, but saw no reason to do anything else after Tam Tam broke alertly and pushed to the front. The pace in this 1 1/16-mile turf race came up solid, 23.17 seconds and 47.88, and Tam Tam, a 20-1 shot, stuck around to the bitter end.
Lion Lake pressed up two wide from nearly the start and poked her nose in front at the furlong grounds. Tam Tam came right back at her, bested Lion Lake, but never had a chance to respond to Imaginationthelady’s final surge.
“She fought so hard with that horse next to her and all of a sudden she got nailed at the wire,” Alvarado said. “She gave it a great effort.”
Walsh, as the field turned for home, thought Lion Lake would win, but Imaginationthelady had yet to stoke up. Gaffalione took her straight to the fence after the start, two horses, Tam Tam and Just Aloof, occupying the rail in front of her. Gaffalione followed Flavien Prat and Just Aloof around the turn, poised, and when Just Aloof came off the fence for her run, Gaffalione took that spot.
Imaginationthelady had a good 2-year-old season, though Gaffalione only rode her for the first time in April. In October, she captured the Grade 2 Jessamine, and with a less-than-ideal trip, she checked in a close fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. Gaffalione climbed aboard for Imaginationthelady’s 3-year-old bow in the Grade 2 Appalachian last month at Keeneland. That race, too, came down to a blanket finish, Imaginationthelady coming up a neck short.
“We were really proud of her effort last time, but we knew she’d improve from it,” Gaffalione said.
Gaffalione cleaved to the rail as long as he could, tipping three wide outside Lion Lake and Tam Tam at the three-sixteenths marker. It took her a good half-furlong to fully find stride, and Just Aloof, emboldened when Imaginationthelady came alongside her, surged forward outside her. Four across the track, Imaginationthelady narrowly best.
Storm’s Wake, last of 13 halfway through, rallied well for fourth, 1 1/4 lengths behind Just Aloof and three-quarters ahead of another Walsh charge, fifth-place Indigo Woods. Imaginationthelady clocked 1:40.92 over firm going.
Imaginationthelady campaigns for Mark Dobbin and is a daughter of Not This Time and the War Front mare Romanticism. She was bred in Kentucky by Ashview Farm and Colts Neck Stable, and Walsh believes her best days are ahead of her.
“I’ve no idea yet where she’ll run next, but I feel she’ll be better as time goes on, and I feel she’ll be better with a little more distance,” Walsh said.
The filly proved just good enough over 1 1/16 miles on Friday. Her trainer needed it.
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