Scorewithcater narrowly captures Borderland

Scorewithcater punched his ticket for the $800,000 Sunland Park Derby on March 29 by winning the $100,000 Borderland Derby by a neck on Saturday at Sunland Park. Mine That Bird, last year's Canadian champion 2-year-old, finished a game second, followed by 15-1 longshot Smokin' Legend another 4 1/4 lengths behind. Tiz Believing, Dumar, Hornung, and Hoya completed the order of finish, while Infernal and Lefty Who were late scratches.

Trained by Doug O'Neill, a two-time winner when the derby was sponsored by WinStar, Scorewithcater ($6.60) won for the third time in four starts since being claimed by O'Neill out of a $40,000 maiden claiming event at Hollywood Park last November. The Even the Score colt rallied strongly under Michael Baze and completed 1 1/16 miles over a fast strip in 1:43.96. He has now earned over $131,000.

"We had a perfect trip throughout," said Baze after the race. "My horse wanted to sit back and make one big run. I had a lot of horse the whole way."