In Te Domine fights her way to a win

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - After wrestling with In Te Domine for more than six furlongs of Thursday’s $100,000 Statue of Liberty Stakes at Saratoga, jockey Ramon Dominguez was wondering what response he would get when he finally asked the 3-year-old filly to run.
It was instant and it was effective.
Rallying five wide into the stretch, In Te Domine seized the lead outside the sixteenth pole and went on to a three-quarter-length victory over Bretton Woods, who outfinished Raffie’s Rose by a head for second.
Knowing that In Te Domine has a tendency to run off if allowed to get in the clear early on, Dominguez made every attempt to get her covered up and behind horses. He had to fight with her to do it, keeping her about five lengths off the pace as Raffie’s Rose set a modest pace of 24.51 seconds, 50.14, and 1:15.86.
Approaching the quarter pole, Dominguez was able to swing In Te Domine outside of horses and turn her loose. She accelerated to the lead approaching the sixteenth pole and was never threatened late. In Te Domine covered the 1 1/16 miles over firm turf in 1:44.42 and returned $3 as the favorite.
“It wasn’t pretty. I was basically pulling her up from the time we left the gate until the quarter pole,” Dominguez said. “I was just very pleased and very surprised as to how well she responded the last part, because I really fought her pretty much the whole way. If I get her clear at any point in the race she would have run off with me, and I don’t think the results would have been the same.”
It was the third victory in six starts for In Te Domine, a daughter of Freud owned by Lawrence and Tom Zyra and Blackout Racing Stables and trained by Linda Rice.
“If there’d been more pace in the race it would have set up better,” said Rice, who won her eighth race of the meet, keeping her tied for third in the standings. “The first turn was a little rough. He had to fight with her a little bit down the backside. She was pretty far off an awfully slow pace, I was afraid they might steal it on the front end.”