Pepper Crown connects at 46-1 in San Francisco Mile

ALBANY, Calif. -- Pepper Crown, an overlooked runner in trainer Alex Paszkeicz's barn, stunned seven rivals with an explosive move down the lane to capture the Grade 3, $100,315 San Francisco Mile at Golden Gate Fields on Saturday.

The $94.20 that Pepper Crown paid was the highest win price in the race's history.

Pepper Crown ran third behind stablemate Pepnic and Hudson Landing in an optional $62,500 claimer on March 30. His stablemate was claimed from the race and was 8-1 in the Mile.

The race went as expected in the early going as Summer Hit took the lead with Horizontalyspeakin pressing him through brisk fractions over a course labeled yielding.

As they raced through fractions of 23.43 seconds, 47.40, and 1:11.89, Pepnic and Pepper Crown were engaged in their own duel two lengths behind the leaders with Pepnic keeping his head in front while outside the eventual winner.

Summer Hit maintained his advantage into the stretch with Horizontalyspeakin sitting just outside him and Pepnic moving three wide.

Jockey Abel Cedillo kept Pepper Crown to the inside but had nowhere to go behind Summer Hit, who was still running strong despite the pressure he had faced.

As the field approached the sixteenth pole and the temporary rail blocking the turf chute ended, Cedillo cut to the wide-open inside and his mount quickly made the lead. Pepper Crown was three-quarters of a length in front of Summer Hit, who lost last year's Mile by a neck before winning Golden Gate's two other graded races for older runners, the All American and the Berkeley.

Pepper Crown's winning time was 1:36.90. All other turf races scheduled Saturday were moved to the main track after a hard rain Friday.

Hudson Landing, the 2012 winner, finished third, 1 3/4 lengths behind Summer Hit with Longview Drive fourth. Horizontalyspeakin, and Pepnic faded to fifth and sixth.

"I thought we had a real good chance," said the 78-year-old Paszkeicz, who began training in 1991 after retiring as a high school teacher and track coach. "If the course was soft, he was the lightest horse going in. The turf course really helped out."

The victory was Paszkeicz's first stakes win and Cedillo's first graded-stakes victory and first win in a $100,000 race.

Paszkeicz said he felt confident watching the race.

"He was right where he was stalking the pace. He loves to do that," the trainer said.

Cedillo knew he was sitting pretty.

"This horse likes to be close. There was a lot of speed in the race with the two favorite,” said Cedillo, referring to 6-5 Summer Hit and 2-1 Horizontalyspeakin, who had won his first two starts of the year at Santa Anita, “so I just wanted to ease off of them.”.

"Coming into the stretch, there was nowhere to go, but then the rail opened up a little bit, and we came on through. He never hesitated and went right through."

Russell Baze broke sharply with Summer Hit, but Jose Valdivia Jr. tried to press him with Horizontalyspeakin.

"On paper that's what looked like could happen, and it did," said Baze. "He couldn't overcome it. He still ran a good race."

Pepper Crown earned $60,000 in his stakes debut to lift his career earnings to $156,433 with 5 victories in 10 starts.

Paszkeicz is the owner, breeder, and trainer of Pepper Crown and owns the sire, Peppered Cat, and dam, Crown This Lady.