My Option breaks through in Chicago Handicap for first win of 4-year-old campaign
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – My Option won the Grade 3 Arlington Oaks last summer and rallied with a flourish to finish a close third in the Grade 2 Raven Run at Keeneland last fall. Hopes were high for her 4-year-old campaign this year, and in her third start of the season, My Option delivered. Splitting horses under Eddie Perez after turning into the homestretch, My Option blew past pace-setting Flower Spell and won the Grade 3, $150,000 Chicago Handicap by 6 1/2 lengths in what might well have been the best race of her career.
Flower Spell, who laid down splits of 23.40 seconds and 46.52 in the seven-furlong Polytrack race for older fillies and mares, clearly held second, finishing 1 1/4 lengths in front of Disco Barbie. My Option, a Belong to Me filly bred and owned by Tim Keeley and trained by Chris Block, was timed in 1:23.72 and paid $13.20 to win.
My Option took a couple months to find herself this year. She finished a rallying third facing Illinois-breds in her April 19 season debut going six furlongs on dirt and was a somewhat disappointing sixth in the Hendrie Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs on Polytrack. My Option might have gotten the wrong trip that day, and Block said he “thought she was sitting on a big race” coming into the Chicago.
Ridden from farther behind this time than last, My Option raced seventh and sixth until midway around the far turn, when she launched her winning move. Perez found an opening about two paths off the fence just past the quarter-pole, My Option flew through it, and she proceeded to dominate in the stretch run.
“At the three-eighths pole, I could see Eddie had a ton of horse,” Block said. “When he found a way through, I knew it was over."
My Option has run well on turf, synthetic, and dirt and around both one turn and two, so Block and Keeley have options this summer. They will be weighed in the coming days, and if My Option retains the form she showed in the Chicago, she will be formidable in a similar sort of race.