Plesa has enjoyable weekend with Miles Ahead and Miss Auramet

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Saffie Joseph Jr. and Paco Lopez were the stars of Saturday’s Claiming Crown card, the former sending out three winners and narrowly missing a fourth, the latter posting a five-bagger on the day, four of those victories coming in Claiming Crown races.

But Joseph and Lopez aren’t the only ones who have gotten off to a fast start at the Championship meet. It also was a very good weekend for trainer Eddie Plesa Jr., who won the Claiming Crown Rapid Transit on Saturday with Grade 3 winner Miles Ahead before coming back the following afternoon to capture the co-featured ninth race in extremely impressive fashion with the stakes-caliber filly Miss Auramet. Both horses are owned in partnership by David Melin, Leon Ellman, and Plesa’s wife, Laurie.

Miles Ahead, who is among the 13 horses nominated to Saturday’s Grade 3 Mr. Prospector, rallied wide under Lopez for a popular 1 1/4-length triumph in the seven-furlong Rapid Transit, his first victory since defeating Chance It and Diamond Oops to register a mild upset in the Grade 3 Smile Sprint here five months earlier. Miles Ahead earned a 97 Beyer Speed Figure on Saturday, equaling his previous lifetime best from earlier this season.

Miss Auramet was an even easier three-length, wire-to-wire winner of a high-priced optional-claiming and allowance dash on Sunday while confidently handled from start to finish by jockey Edgard Zayas. The win was the third in 10 starts this season for the 5-year-old, swelling her seasonal earnings to more than $217,000.

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“It was a very good weekend, the only negative being we couldn’t get Vow Me In off the also-eligible list for his race [Claming Crown Emerald],” Plesa said Monday. “I really liked both horses going into their races, the way they’d been training. I thought it would have taken something out of the ordinary for one of them to get beat.

“I freshened both horses up after their last starts and I think they really benefited from the vacation. They needed the time, because it’s going to be a long year for them moving forward, and this was a great way to get started.”

Plesa said he nominated Miles Ahead for the Mr Prospector as a bit of a safety net, but is not inclined to wheel him back on one week’s rest.

“I had the Mr. Prospector as a back-up in case something happened, either he didn’t draw into the Rapid Transit or we ran into a glitch and missed a day or two of training leading up to that race,” Plesa explained. “I’m not opposed to running a horse back in seven days, I’ve done it on occasion, although this wouldn’t be the right place for him. It’s just too bad the timing wasn’t a little better and the Mr. Prospector were two or three weeks out instead.”

Plesa, one of the leading trainers in the history of the now defunct Calder Race Course, says he still spends time during training hours here most mornings with a handful of other former regulars of the longtime South Florida racing fixture, among them Ron Spatz, Jose Pinchin, Larry Bates, and Joe Catanese.

“We all gather in our golf carts near the eighth pole to watch our horses train in the morning and it sure turned out to be a lucky spot for the whole group this weekend, as each of us won a race on Sunday,” Plesa noted.