Mohawk: Idyllic Beach prevails in She's A Great Lady

Idyllic Beach joined her dam Idyllic as a champion of the She's A Great Lady Stakes after a 1:50 3/5 victory in Saturday night's C$427,000 final at Mohawk Racetrack.

World Apart (Tim Tetrick) was the first leader in the race, taking the group of ten 2-year-old pacing fillies to the opening quarter in 27 seconds, but driver Yannick Gingras already had Idyllic Beach, sent off at 2-5, out and on the move from third at that point, and she would take the lead in the backstretch.

Idyllic Beach would go on to reach the half in 55 3/5 and the three-quarters in 1:23 2/5, with Agent Q (David Miller) moving first-up from fourth to challenge around the final bend. In the stretch Agent Q continued to chip away at Idyllic Beach's lead, but she just couldn't get by, with Idyllic Beach holding sway by half a length. Candlelight Dinner (Matt Kakaley) beat out Everyones Watching (Jody Jamieson) in a photo for third, and Awash (Phil Hudon) took fifth.

"I really didn't know going to the gate what I was going to do," Gingras said. "The inside three left pretty hard, so that made my job easy. That took the outside speed out of the race. At the eighth pole I knew I would be cutting the mile.

"I thought those three (Idyllic Beach, Agent Q, and Candlelight Dinner) kind of stood out a little bit from the rest. I wanted to make sure I had my filly in the right spot versus those two."

Jimmy Takter trains the winner, a filly by Somebeachsomewhere, for owners Christina Takter, John Fielding, Brixton Medical Inc., and Marvin Katz. Taken out of the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale for $100,000, Idyllic Beach is the first foal out of Idyllic, who earned just shy of $1.3 million in her career. Idyllic Beach, who has now won five times from six starts and earned $316,212, paid $2.80 to win.