Lost Horizon has no trouble with Serena's Song
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A day after prominent owner and breeder Peter Brant revealed that he’d moved some of his best racehorses away from Chad Brown, giving them to other trainers, Brown gave Brant a new stakes winner when Lost Horizon dominated the $100,000 Serena’s Song on Saturday at Monmouth Park.
It was a fairly important win, too, from the breeding side of the game. Brant’s White Birch Farm bred Lost Horizon, who is a daughter of top sire Into Mischief and the second foal to race – the first winner of any sort – out of Wow Cat, heroine of the Grade 1 Beldame in 2018, when Brown trained her for Brant and a co-owner.
Speaking of Grade 1-winning race mares, this marked the first renewal of the Serena’s Song since Serena’s Song herself died this past March at age 34. A Hall of Famer, Serena’s Song beat colts winning the Grade 1 Haskell at Monmouth in 1995.
Lost Horizon debuted last summer in a Saratoga sprint, but needed a route of ground in her second start to show meaningful ability. Second going 1 1/8 miles, she didn’t race for the third time until January, easily winning a one-turn Aqueduct maiden mile before coming back a month later with a cozy first-level allowance score. Brown tried her March 29 in the Top Flight Invitational, where Lost Horizon finished an even and well-beaten third, but she appeared to take a considerable step forward Saturday.
Under Luis Rivera, Lost Horizon sat third in the pocket, closely attending a solid pace set by 9-5 favorite Domino Vitali, who was pushed along by It’s Goodtobe Jose through a half-mile in 47.28. Domino Vitali, making her stakes and two-turn debut, vacated the rail midway around the far turn and Lost Horizon gave Rivera a rapid response when asked to go up into the gap. She nosed into the lead at the quarter pole and had put the Serena’s Song to bed well before the furlong grounds, pulling steadily clear to win by 8 1/2 lengths. Domino Vitali barely held second over Ourdaydreaminggirl, who took forever to find stride but finally picked up in midstretch, finishing about as fast as the winner while nothing close to a match for her.
Lost Horizon ran one mile, 70 yards in 1:42.88 and paid $8.20 as the third choice. She and three others carried 120 pounds under the race’s allowance conditions, with two entrants toting 118.
What lies over the horizon for this developing 4-year-old filly? Probably better things - presumably under Brown’s care.
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