Lady T N T takes down Charles Town Oaks
Lady T N T blew up the tote-board winning the Grade 3, $300,000 Charles Town Oaks.
Locally based jockey J. D. Acosta set the filly’s fuse to a slow burn on the lead, lit her up turning into the short Charles Town homestretch, and got his mount home one-length clear of fast-closing 6-5 favorite, Irish Mischief.
Not ridiculously priced at 10-1 on the track’s morning line, Lady T N T paid $76.80 to win. She ran seven furlongs on a muddy track in 1:25.23 notching her first stakes victory in her first 2019 win of any kind.
Trainer Joe Sharp, who cut his racing teeth in the Mid-Atlantic region, had watched his two previous stakes entrants Saturday night at Charles Town go down to defeat (Classy Act was a decent second in the Pink Ribbon, Nautical Gem a flat fifth in the Dickie Moore). But Sharp has won at least one stakes race with a ship-in the last three seasons at Charles Town and took down the lucrative feature with a 3-year-old filly he’d cross-entered and scratched from a lesser race in Maryland.
Sharp said earlier this week he believed Lady T N T’s early speed would prove an asset in the local Oaks, and it did. She broke sharply, fended off Fashion Faux Pas to make the front, and set splits of 23.25 and 47.01 seconds. Lady T N T surged to a clear lead at the top of the homestretch and never came close to being caught. Irish Mischief, coming from much farther off the pace than in either of two recent Kentucky wins, finished full of run on the far outside but ran out of ground. Longshot Taylor’s Spirit was a solid third, while Newly Minted, who’d have been among the favorites, was scratched.
Lady T N T, by Justin Philip out of High Heeled Hope, by Salt Lake, is owned by Scott and Evan Dilworth. She flashed significant ability last summer as a 2-year-old, winning a maiden race at Saratoga and a first-level Churchill allowance. Lady T N T ran well in defeat earlier this year and on Saturday adapted nicely to the demands of a long two-turn sprint on a tight bullring racing oval.
