Quiet Force holds off challengers to win Arlington Handicap

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Just when he had found the best form of his career last summer, Quiet Force went to the sidelines, but two races into his comeback, he picked up right where he left off, scoring a mild upset Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Arlington Handicap.

Quiet Force, tracking from second place the solid pace of Dramedy, took the lead in midstretch and held off a run from Middleburg, with the favored Up With the Birds flattening out late and barely holding third after a troubled backstretch run.

Few trainers do better turning claimers into stakes horses than Mike Maker, and after assuming the training of Quiet Force last summer following a $40,000 claim at Santa Anita, Maker worked his magic again. Quiet Force sharply won a Churchill allowance race before running off to an easy score in the $103,000 J K Self at Indiana Grand a little more than a year ago, but that was it for the horse until May, when he reappeared in a Parx allowance race.

Quiet Force finished third in his comeback, but the race clearly served its purpose, propelling him to what might well have been a career-best performance Saturday. While well positioned, Quiet Force stuck close to the fastest turf pace of the afternoon, and given that, he did well to hold clear Middleburg, who was coming off a close second to Triple Threat (who was scratched sick from the Arlington Handicap) in the Grade 3 Monmouth Stakes.

Saving ground despite a wide draw under James Graham, Middleburg tried to squeeze through at the fence inside Dramedy at the head of the homestretch, but he was thwarted and had to come around the pacesetter to make an inside run at Quiet Force. It briefly looked like he’d get there, but Middleburg settled for his seventh second-place finish from 15 career starts.

Up With the Birds and Drayden van Dyke bullied their way off the fence entering the backstretch, bumping with Yankee Dealer to the outside, then getting bumped by Coco Mon to the inside. Whether that took Up With the Birds out of his game is impossible to say, but after having dead aim on the outside at the eighth pole, he failed to sustain his run.

Quiet Force, a son of Dynaformer bred by Alain and Gerard Wertheimer and now owned by Warner Thoroughbreds, was timed in 1:56.50 for the 1 3/16 miles on good turf and paid $12.40 to win.