SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Mark Casse was watching his filly La Cara and jockey Dylan Davis cruising over the sloppy track at Saratoga in Friday’s Grade 1 Acorn Stakes when he took a peek back to look at the competition. Specifically, Casse focused his attention on the undefeated Good Cheer, who just five weeks earlier beat La Cara handily in the Kentucky Oaks. “I was looking for her and she was really struggling,” Casse said. Casse then turned his attention back to La Cara, and at the three-sixteenths pole allowed himself to yell out “Go get ’em Dylan!” Totally in control at that point, La Cara and Davis polished off their front-running tour de force, splashing to a three-length victory in the $500,000 Acorn. Look Forward, who had chased La Cara from second under Umberto Rispoli, finished in that position, a neck over Scottish Lassie. Bless the Broken finished fourth followed by Good Cheer, the 3-10 favorite who suffered her first career defeat in her eighth start. Quickick finished last. Shred the Gnar, the 3-1 morning-line second choice, scratched earlier in the day due to an unspecified issue with a leg. La Cara, who won the Grade 1 Ashland over a fast surface in April, finished ninth, beaten 13 lengths by Good Cheer, in the Kentucky Oaks five weeks ago over a wet track. :: Bet the Belmont Stakes with confidence! Betting Strategies by Mike Beer and David Aragona feature exclusive wager recommendations! “That’s the problem with muddy racetracks, they’re different,” Casse said. “We ran into the same issue with Sandman in the Kentucky Derby. It’s so frustrating. You come all this way to run in these big races and you catch the weather. Sometimes it works for you, sometimes it doesn’t.” While the wet track worked well for Casse on Friday, it didn’t work nearly as well for Good Cheer, who had won a maiden race at Churchill Downs by 17 lengths in the slop at 2, as well as the Oaks over an off track. “Once again, I think weather and wet tracks are a great equalizer,” said Brad Cox, the trainer of Good Cheer. “Obviously, she performed well on one at Churchill, didn’t quite perform as well on one today. “At the half-mile pole you could tell she wasn’t traveling well, she wasn’t gaining on the leaders and it wasn’t her day.” Cox said jockey Luis Saez told him that “he just never really had any horse. She was flat. It’s disappointing but it is what it is.” Davis said the Churchill wet track was more a “soupy, suction-type of track.” But in his experience riding wet tracks at Saratoga, he knew this one would be tighter. “I thought that was in her favor and exactly what I saw when I came out on the track, it was tight and once she got to the backside she took control,” Davis said. “Once I got her to the backside, she got into a good rhythm for me. She got the fractions that she wanted comfortably and was able to finish on through the wire.” La Cara’s fractions were 23.40 seconds for the quarter, 47.08 for the half, 1:10.74 for six furlongs, and she covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:49.20. La Cara, a daughter of Street Sense, owned and bred by Tracy Farmer, returned $17.40 to win and notched a career-best 93 Beyer Speed Figure. :: DRF Belmont Stakes Packages: Save up to 52% on PPs, Clocker Reports, Betting Strategies, and more. There were bridge-jumpers in the show pool on Good Cheer. A total of $367,237 was wagered to show on Good Cheer out of $455,834. That led to show payouts of $17.20 on La Cara, $18 on Look Forward and $15.80 on Scottish Lassie. Look Forward was coming off a victory in the Grade 2 Eight Belles Stakes over a wet track. Her previous two turn races in the Honeybee and Ashland came with bad trips. She finished a no-excuse second in the Acorn. “Certainly happy today to run as well as could be expected without winning,” trainer Michael McCarthy said. “The winner was loose on the lead. We took a run at her, we were right behind her, she kind of spurted away, second best on the day. Big performance by the winner.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.