Slides Choice outduels Pay the Man in DeBartolo

Slides Choice and Pay the Man, the two top Ohio-bred females, turned the final mile of Sunday's nine-furlong, $50,000, Rose DeBartolo Memorial Stakes at Thistledown into a match race with very little separating them.

Slides Choice ($4.60), under a energetic ride by Jason Lumpkins, proved best by a neck. Squeezer’s Palace was steadily gaining ground to be third, two lengths farther back.

While Pay the Man lost the battle, she won the money war. Her share of the purse, $10,000, raised her career earnings to $591,981, making her the all-time money winning Ohio-bred female.

"Give Jason the credit for this win," said Ricky Feliciano, who rode Pay the Man.” He never gave me a breather. Once he lapped on me I knew this was going to be a tough battle."

Slides Choice, owned by Mary Crawford and Gerald Brown, and trained by Tim Hamm, ran the distance in 1:51.56.