Lead Guitar makes Autumn Days fourth win in row

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Fast pace or slow, firm ground or not, very little seems to matter to Lead Guitar.

On Sunday, the New York-bred Lead Guitar ran her winning streak to four by sitting close off a slow pace, then pulling away to win the $100,000 Autumn Days Stakes by 3 1/4 lengths at Aqueduct.

A Great Time, who loomed a threat at the head of the lane, was no match for Lead Guitar in the stretch, settling for second, a head in front of Risky Mischief.

Lead Guitar added the Autumn Days to a victory last month in the Floral Park Stakes at Belmont. Prior to that she won allowance races at Belmont and Saratoga.

“It just seems like every race she gets better and better,” said Blair Golen, assistant to trainer George Weaver. “What I love about her is it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t go her way, it’s fine, she’s got it.”

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Things pretty much went Lead Guitar’s way Sunday. Put into the race early by Jose Lezcano, Lead Guitar stalked Risky Mischief through a modest half-mile in 47.08 seconds. Turning for home, with A Great Time just to his outside, Lezcano asked Lead Guitar to run and she powered home a much-the-best winner.

“She’s the kind of filly I think she can come from behind, she doesn’t need to be close, but today I think the best thing was to be close the way the track’s playing,” Lezcano said. “She finished very good.”

Lead Guitar, a 4-year-old daughter of Maclean’s Music owned by Jim and Susan Hill, won for the fifth time in seven starts this year and her sixth from 11 races overall. She ran six furlongs over a turf course labeled good in 1:10.87 and returned $4.50 as the favorite.

Following Risky Mischief in the order of finish were Madeleine Must, Ode to Joy, I’llhandalthecash, Saratoga Treasure, Mentality, My Sassy Sarah, and Dendrobia.

Rose Flower scratched.