Richies Party Girl wins Wait a While Stakes in return to turf

Returned to the grass after setting the pace in Keeneland’s Beaumont Stakes in her seasonal debut, Richies Party Girl took over from Macaroon in the stretch and held on to win Sunday’s $100,000 Wait a While Stakes at Belmont Park by three-quarters of a length.

Richies Party Girl posted three wire-to-wire wins as a 2-year-old, twice against males, including the Juvenile Turf Sprint. She was able to settle closest to Macaroon through fractions of 22.90 seconds and 46.23 and wrested command readily in the stretch under John Velazquez.

Riches Party Girl ($7.90) opened a clear lead into the final furlong and had enough in reserve to turn back Sweet Acclaim, who was off slow and forced to go four wide rallying on the turn.

Richies Party Girl ran seven furlongs in 1:21.84 on a Widener course labeled good and earned $60,000 for her fourth win in eight starts overall.

Sweet Acclaim, late changing leads in the stretch finished gamely but ran out of ground as the 1-2 favorite while clearly second best.

Lemon Point, Red Minx, and Macaroon completed the order of finish.