No one can catch Beau Dare

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The instructions were simple. The repercussions were none.

Trainer Bruce Levine told jockey Chuck Lopez to make sure Beau Dare secured the early lead in Saturday's Correction Handicap at Aqueduct and if she got used up in a speed duel with the speedy Mulligatawny, so be it.

Lopez did indeed get Beau Dare to the front and she took the field gate to wire to win the $79,550 Correction by one-half length over a hard-luck Rite Moment. It was a head back to Charlotte's Di in third. Mulligatawny, the 6-5 favorite, finished fourth, ending a four-race winning streak.

It was the fifth win from 21 starts for Beau Dare and second straight since returning to the dirt after 11 consecutive races on turf. It was her first stakes win since she captured the Kentucky Cup Juvenile Fillies at Turfway Park in 2005.

Mulligatawny, breaking from the rail under Stewart Elliott, looked like she could be the main speed of the Correction. But Beau Dare had some speed herself and Levine and Lopez were intent on using it.

"I think if you can head that filly you can beat her and that's what he did," Levine said he instructed Lopez. "He knows when I tell him that, if you get chewed up and you're last, no remorse. I got no problem with you trying to win and make the lead on this track. You get beat 20 lengths, don't you worry about it, I'll find you another spot."

Beau Dare ($17.20), breaking from post 5, shot to the front and carved out fractions of 22.46 seconds, 45.85, 58.13, and covered six furlongs in 1:10.96.

"I told them all in the jocks' room I wasn't getting dirty," Lopez said. "Bruce definitely wanted to get in front of that horse and when she broke that was it."

Beau Dare may have been aided by a poor start from Rite Moment, who tossed her head when the gates opened, trailed the field, then had to rally wide in the stretch under Jermaine Bridgmohan.

"She acted up a little bit, we weren't ready for the break, they kind of left her," Bridgmohan said.

A rematch could be forthcoming in the Grade 2, $150,000 Distaff Breeders' Cup Handicap over the inner track on March 22.