Lezendary gives Rodriguez 999th training win

Lezendary didn’t race badly in her first three career starts but she came up lacking in the stretch and was unable to seal the deal.

In her last two races, with the addition of blinkers, it's been a different story.

A daughter of Zensational owned and bred by Zayat Stables, Lezendary pulled away to win an Aqueduct maiden race in mid-January. On Sunday she doubled down, finishing with gusto under strong handling from jockey Trevor McCarthy to win the $100,000 Cicada Stakes by 3 1/4 lengths.

Lezendary paid $11.40 as the third betting choice in the seven-horse field of 3-year-old fillies. She covered six furlongs in 1:11.16, following reasonable fractions of 23.41, and 47.39. It would be no surprise to see her improvement continue.

The win was the 999th of trainer Rudy Rodriguez's career. Rodriguez had three starters in the Cicada, with 9-5 favorite Strategic Dreams finishing fourth and Danyelli ending up fifth.

"We were very proud of all the fillies we ran," Rodriguez said. "Lezendary broke very alertly and put herself in a position to win the race. She did everything we asked. She had a nice layoff and it looked like the blinkers did the job, so we're very happy to see her run that way."

Lezendary prompted the early pace outside of her Zayat-owned stablemate Danyelli, who was sent hard from the gate. Gibby moved up early on the turn to join the pace three wide.

Lezendary took a short lead on the turn, then broke the race open in upper stretch when set down by McCarthy. For all intentions, the race was over in midstretch.

"The game plan was to get away good," McCarthy said. "If I was on the lead, great, if not, just stalk. We went a slow pace early, so she was real handy for me. When we kicked for home, she really dropped down and took off."

Shamrock Rose, 2-1 finished willingly from well out in the track to be second. It was 1 1/2 lengths farther back to Gibby, who held third by a nose over Strategic Dreams.

Strategic Dreams didn't have the smoothest trip. She moved up inside the pacesetters late on the backstretch but then dropped back a bit and settled off the pace while between horses. She never reached serious contention.

Rodriguez said Danyelli would get at least two months off to regroup.