Shining Star leads Mardi Gras parade
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Shining Star looks like something special, and she glittered brightly in an easy Mardi Gras Stakes win Tuesday at Fair Grounds.
Bred in Chile, the mare won her first five starts there – four sprints and a mile, all on dirt – before losing her form in a 1 1/4-mile contest and subsequently being sent to California. Her lone race there, another dirt contest last May, was very poor, but Shining Star has found a home in the Brad Cox barn and in turf sprints
In her first start for Cox, this past October, she overcame a tough trip to win a Horseshoe Indianapolis turf-sprint allowance race by more than seven lengths. On Jan. 9 at Fair Grounds, Shining Star stepped up a notch in class and won another turf-sprint allowance by more than four, and nobody came close to touching her Tuesday in the $100,000 Mardi Gras.
The mare had stalked the pace in her last two starts but in the Mardi Gras, Shining Star broke like a rocket, set splits of 21.67 and 44.64, and stretched her lead from three lengths at the stretch call to 4 1/4 at the wire. On paper, Lotsandlotsofcandy looked like the Mardi Gras speed, but she never came close to making the top.
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“I broke better than her and I decided to let her run,” said winning jockey Jose Ortiz. “She was traveling good the whole way.”
Big Trouble rallied mildly for second, 1 3/4 lengths in front of third-place Civetta, with Lotsandlotsofcandy, who was making her turf debut, another half-length back in fourth.
Shining Star ran 5 1/2 furlongs on a firm course in 1:02.34 and paid $5.
A homebred, Shining Star campaigns for Oussama Aboughazale’s Sumaya U S Stable. A 5-year-old bred on Southern Hemisphere time, she’s by the Tapit stallion Sahara Spirit and out of Green Power, by Dublin. Lightly raced, Shining Star’s record stands at 9-7-0-0.
“She’s versatile, too, because she’s rated, and now she breaks on top and wins that way,” said assistant trainer Ricky Giannini. “She’s very push-button.”
And so far, untouchable on grass.
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