Nest tunes up for BC Distaff by dominating Beldame Stakes
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Nest recorded another devastatingly easy victory Sunday at Aqueduct, winning the Grade 2, $250,000 Beldame Stakes by 9 3/4 lengths and sending her to Keeneland as the likely favorite for the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Distaff on Nov. 5.
Though facing older females for the first time, the 3-year-old filly Nest was in control from the outset. Under Irad Ortiz Jr., Nest was perched three-wide down the backstretch, within 1 1/2-lengths of pacesetting Travel Colum and pace prompter First to Act. Ortiz guided her toward the leaders at the five-sixteenths pole, brought her a few paths wide turning for home, opened up in midstretch, then took Nest in hand coming to the wire.
First to Act finished second, 5 1/2 lengths clear of Hybrid Eclipse. Travel Column and The Grass Is Blue completed the order of finish.
The victory was the seventh from 10 career starts for Nest, and fifth from seven starts this year. She was coming off wins in the Grade 1 Alabama (by 4 1/2 lengths) and Coaching Club American Oaks (by 12 1/4 lengths) at Saratoga.
“This is now three [straight] wow performances,” said Mike Repole, who owns Nest in partnership with Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Michael Strauss. “She’s just getting better and better every start. She’s a really, really special filly.”
Ortiz said Nest has been breaking better her last couple of races than she did earlier in the year and it has helped him get her into the race better. Once he got Nest off the rail at the six-furlong pole Sunday, the race was basically over.
“By the backside they slowed down a little bit, nobody was outside of me, I decided to go [wide] and stay out of trouble because she looked like she was much the best on paper, so that’s the way I rode her," Ortiz said. “We hit the clear and I let her do her thing after that.”
Nest, a daughter of Curlin, covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:52.38 and returned $2.10 as the overwhelming favorite while earning a 101 Beyer Speed Figure. She gave trainer Todd Pletcher his sixth victory in the Beldame.
“That’s what we were hoping for, she continues to show her good form,” said assistant Byron Hughes, who saddled for Pletcher, who was at Keeneland to run Malathaat in the Grade 1 Spinster. "She had a really good break, clean trip, Irad got her to the outside to keep her in the clear and she did her thing.”
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