Life At Ten cruises in Rare Treat

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - As far as Richard Migliore is concerned, he got paid to go horseback riding Saturday at Aqueduct.

Migliore was aboard Life At Ten, who broke on top and never looked back in cruising to a 5 1/4-length victory in Saturday's $65,000 Rare Treat Stakes. Starship Angel, who was a bit of trouble in the gate, chased Life At Ten the entire trip and finished second, 16 lengths ahead of Pumpkin Shell. Yet Again and Borrowing Base completed the order of finish on a day when front-runners won the first five races.

Making her first start since winning the Snit Stakes here Dec. 12, Life At Ten galloped around Aqueduct's inner rack in fractions of 24.14 seconds, 48.28, 1:12.53, 1:37.40, and covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:50.09. She returned $3.80 as the favorite.

"Warming up, I don't think a horse could instill more confidence in a rider; the more I warmed her up, the more I felt like she was a cinch," Migliore said. "When she bounced out of the gate in such good order and relaxed so well, it was basically over in an eighth of a mile. It was a lot of fun; that's like going horseback riding."

It was the third straight victory for Life At Ten, a 5-year-old Kentucky-bred daughter of Malibu Moon owned by Cynthia DeBartolo and trained by Todd Pletcher. Life At Ten missed some training time due to a quarter crack suffered in late December and had only three workouts leading up to the Rare Treat.

"Less than ideal preparation, so to get a mile and an eighth like she did is a real credit to the filly," said Jonathan Thomas, Pletcher's New York-based assistant. "Ian [McKinlay] and Ray Amato Jr., they did a great job to get her back to the races."

Though Starship Angel overcame a troubled start in her last race to win, she emerged from the effort with some poor gate habits. Though her connections had schooled her almost daily leading up to the Rare Treat, Starship Angel was difficult in the gate again.

"She doesn't act nervous, when she's uncomfortable she just sat down," jockey Anna Napravnik said. "They couldn't get her to stand up, so they just backed her out and put her in; you just have to get on without bothering her. She hopped a little bit at the start but she broke relatively well and it didn't really set us back in the race."