Mind Control repeats in Parx Dirt Mile after disqualification

BENSALEM, Pa. – With an assist from the Parx Racing stewards, Mind Control captured the $200,000 Parx Dirt Mile for the second consecutive year.

Ridden by John Velazquez for Todd Pletcher, Mind Control broke alertly over the speed-friendly surface but was forced to track the pace as jockey Dexter Haddock and Far Mo Power had better early speed.

Far Mo Power set rated fractions of 24.06 seconds, 47.54, and 1:11.50 while shadowed by Mind Control, and the two hooked up turning into the stretch.

Mind Control had momentum, but Far Mo Power was far from finished. Haddock scrubbed on the Pennsylvania-bred colt, and Far Mo Power surged back to a brief advantage inside the three-sixteenths pole.

Haddock went to work with a left-handed stick, however, and Far Mo Power came out a couple of paths. That forced Velazquez to briefly check his momentum. Mind Control re-rallied nearing the wire but fell a neck shy after a mile in 1:36.59.

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It was 11 3/4 lengths back to Dontmesawithme in third. Then came New Commission, Derby House, Too Boss, and Milton the Monster. Nick Papagiorgio scratched.

Velazquez immediately claimed foul.

“He came out on me first at the top of the stretch,” Velazquez said after the disqualification was announced. “My horse is a fighter. When he came out the first time, my horse got head-and-head with him again and I thought I had him. But, at the sixteenth pole, when he hit him left handed and he touched him, that got my horse intimidated and off balance.”

Haddock disagreed with the stewards’ assessment.

“He [Velazquez] came in right,” Haddock said after the race. “The horse tried hard.”

Bred in Kentucky by Red Oak Stable and owned in partnership with Madaket Stables, Mind Control is a 6-year-old son of Stay Thirsty. He has won 11 of 28 starts for lifetime earnings of $1,773,334. He returned $3.20 to win as the prohibitive favorite. Mind Control was given a 100 Beyer Speed Figure.

Byron Hughes, Pletcher’s New York-based assistant trainer, mentioned the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile as a possible next destination for Mind Control. After winning last year’s Parx Dirt Mile, Mind Control’s Breeders’ Cup plans were abandoned after the horse got sick.

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