Prairie Meadows: Ice Hockey gets first stakes victory in Cyclones Handicap

ALTOONA, Iowa – Ice Hockey, under a determined effort from jockey Israel Ocampo, wore down 29-1 pacesetter Beware the Devil to garner a head victory in Saturday night's featured $75,000 Cyclones Handicap at Prairie Meadows.

Beware the Devil, with David Mello aboard, seized command from the outset in the 1 1/16-mile test and managed to stack up his six Iowa-bred rivals behind dawdling fractions of 24.55 and 49.76 seconds. The Chris Richard-trained Ice Hockey ($9.20) was angled off the rail on the far turn to take aim and needed the length of the stretch to wear down the field's outsider.

The favored Wings of War never threatened and wound up third, 8 1/2 lengths behind Beware the Devil. Cainam, a deep closer who had won the Cyclones in each of the previous two years, was compromised by the lack of pace and wound up sixth; 2010 Cyclones winner Kate's Main Man made a bid on the far turn before flattening out to run fourth.

Owned by the meet's leading owner, Maggi Moss, the 6-year-old Ice Hockey collected $45,000 for his first stakes victory, which ended a string of five straight second-place finishes. Moss, a Des Moines, Iowa, resident who ranks fourth among owners nationally by earnings in 2013, has won with 19 of her 55 starters here this season.

Over a track rated “good” following an evening of intermittent rain, Ice Hockey covered the distance in 1:45.06.