Rudirudy wins John McSorley

OCEANPORT, N.J. - Rudirudy raced wire-to-wire to win the $50,000 John McSorley for three-year-olds and up at five furlongs on a muddy track before a crowd of 13,185. Slated for the turf, the race was moved to the main track, and resulted in a field of five.

The win was Rudirudy's second five-furlong off-the-turf stakes win this meet, as he captured the Wolf Hill here June 2. Rudirudy ($8.20), trained and owned by Gaston Sandoval, covered the distance in 56.54 with Eibar Coa aboard. Special Occasion, the turf sprint specialist who ran on his first off track, was 3 ? lengths back for place. Riot, the 7-5 favorite, was third.

The McSorley was the fourth consecutive off-the-turf stakes that Rudirudy ran in. Not that trainer Gaston Sandoval planned it that way. "Every time I run him, we catch a sloppy track," he said. "I would have preferred to scratch him and when I came to the track this morning, that's what I planned to do, but when I saw there were so many scratches I decided to run."

* U.S. Gold ($2.80) defeated Sea Soul by a neck to win the Malouf Auto Group Starter Series #2 in 1:46.49 over a sloppy track. The race was moved off the turf, and also a 1-2 repeat finish of the first series, which was also moved off the turf on June 17.