Sweet Seraphine overcomes bad break, takes Wilton Stakes

Sweet Seraphine may still be a little on the green side but she showed off plenty of talent and courage after overcoming a bobble at the break to notch her first stakes victory, a head decision over Dry Powder, in Sunday’s $125,000 Wilton Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at Aqueduct.

Sweet Seraphine came into the Wilton having made just two previous starts that included a gallant nose decision when stretching to a mile for the first time in her 3-year-old debut last month at Churchill Downs. And her prospects of making it two in a row appeared to take a severe blow after she stumbled leaving the gate and dropped about 10 lengths off the early leaders in the run down the backstretch of the one-mile Wilton.

Sweet Seraphine was still nearly six lengths behind the leaders when angling wide to continue her bid under jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. leaving the turn, ultimately running down Dry Powder in the final yards despite never switching off her left lead the entire length of the stretch.

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Dry Powder, another with only two prior starts and making her stakes debut in the Wilton, prompted a rapid pace set by Mazayaat and attended by Pink Ruby while three wide around the turn. Dry Powder ultimately emerged with a clear advantage passing the sixteenth pole, but could not withstand the winner’s final bid. Pink Ruby outlasted the others to finish third.

Sweet Seraphine is a Stonehaven Steadings homebred by Quality Road trained by Cherie DeVaux. She completed the distance in 1:35.94 seconds over the fast track and paid $4.40.

“It’s always concerning when they do that [stumble from the gate], but Irad [Ortiz Jr.] just let her get her footing and get position. They set a fast pace up front, which helped. She really responded well once he got her out in the clear and had those strong fractions to close into,” DeVaux said.

DeVaux admitted the original plan was to run Sweet Seraphine back in an allowance race off her maiden win. The Wilton was written for horses that have never won a sweepstakes.

“We were trying to get into a ‘1X’ but this race came up a little light and was an opportunity to get some black type and see where we’re at with her,” De Vaux explained.

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