Scylla aces two-turn test with Shawnee triumph

The Shawnee Stakes wasn’t merely a race for the 4-year-old filly Scylla. It was a test that she passed with a near-perfect score.

Stalking and pressing pacesetting Xigera, Scylla pounced the leader in upper stretch and, after lugging in slightly before the eighth pole, drew clear to a 3 1/4-length win in the Grade 3, $275,000 Shawnee Stakes.

The race was run around two turns at 1 1/16 miles, and Scylla showed that she actually can be a route horse.

In four starts around one turn, Scylla had three wins and a strong second. In her lone two-turn race, the Doubledogdare Stakes in April at Keeneland, she finished a fading third as the heavy favorite. That performance, not a subsequent seven-length win in a Churchill one-turn mile, motivated Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott to try Scylla in blinkers Saturday. Whether it was the blinkers or just a progressive filly running an improved race, Scylla looked like a horse on the way to more important races in the distaff division.

Under Javier Castellano, the only jockey the filly has known, Scylla didn’t break especially well but came forward to get into second, about two paths off the rail, going into the first turn. Racing just a touch keenly onto the backstretch, Scylla ran a half-length behind Xigera through fractions of 24.03 and 48.33 seconds, a tepid tempo on a glib surface. Castellano ratcheted up the pressure going into the far turn and by the three-eighths pole, Scylla had drawn abreast of Xigera. Scylla had a half-length lead at the quarter pole and wandered inside and off her line at the three-sixteenths marker, but Castellano corrected her course, and under moderate encouragement, Scylla pulled steadily away for an easy win, galloping out far in front of her foes.

While no match for the winner, Xigera rebounded from a no-show performance in the La Troienne Stakes, her seasonal debut. She finished 1 1/4 lengths in front of Wet Paint, who raced surprisingly close to the pace, was outrun into the homestretch, but came back mildly for the show, edging Hoosier Philly. Scylla was clocked in 1:42.38 over a fast track and paid $4.54.

A Juddmonte Farm homebred, Scylla is bred in the purple, a daughter of Tapit and the First Defence mare, Close Hatches, a multiple Grade 1 winner who has produced Tacitus, who placed in multiple Grade 1s, and the good 3-year-old Batten Down. Mott said connections thought from the start that Scylla could be a top-class horse. Now, she’s on her way.

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