Verifire shows solid form with Maxfield Stakes victory
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Unbeaten and for the most part untested after three starts, Verifire is looking like a million bucks out on the racetrack. And with a 2 3/4-length win Sunday at Churchill in the $250,000 Maxfield Stakes, Verifire took another step toward validating the $1 million that John Stewart’s Resolute Bloodstock paid to acquire the colt at a 2-year-old auction two springs ago.
Trainer Brad Cox has kept Verifire on a path of little resistance, debuting the colt March 15 during the brief Colonial Downs meet, then sending him to Pimlico for a Preakness week first-level allowance. The Maxfield marked his sternest test; Verifire passed with high marks.
The colt, by Authentic out of Ruby Trust, by Smart Strike, did benefit from an outside post, 9, from which jockey Flavien Prat could ration out Verifire’s speed while keeping the horse’s face clean. Sitting fourth through the first half-furlong, Prat tapped on the gas to move into third behind inside pacesetter Captain Cook and Smoken Wicked, who tracked the leader.
There this trio stayed through a quarter-mile in 22.36 and a half-mile in a zingy 44.56, still stacked evenly across the track at the three-sixteenths pole. But by the eighth pole, Verifire had taken a lead, and, going much better than the two behind him, he stretched it to the maximum margin at the finish.
The three leaders proved much better than the eight others racing, Smoken Wicked one length better than Captain Cook, who had more than four on fourth-place Retribution. Granted, the Churchill surface has played fast for a good portion of a meet that ended Sunday, but Verifire smoked seven furlongs in 1:20.77. He paid $7.18 as the narrow second choice behind Captain Cook.
Verifire posted timed workouts throughout last summer but didn’t debut until a year had passed after his million-dollar purchase. There’s work yet to do, but Verifire looks worth the wait.
Pin Up Betty wins Anchorage
Pin Up Betty, favored at 4-5, would have been formidable over most any turf course in a race like the $175,000 Anchorage Overnight Stakes, and on the Churchill course, apparently her favorite, there was no beating her Sunday.
Fifth of seven during the early and middle stages of the 1 1/8-mile Anchorage, Pin Up Betty and jockey Luis Saez commenced their move in upper stretch, sailed to the lead in the final furlong, and held clear a late, wide bid from Duvet Day to win by three-quarters of a length. Narrow margins separated the second- through fourth-place finishers, with Long Ago third, a head behind Duvet Day and a head in front of Sparkle Blue, who couldn’t find a hole to split horses at the furlong grounds and had to belatedly switch outside.
Pin Up Betty’s record on the Churchill grass now stands at 6-4-1-0; she’s winless in 10 other races. On June 1, she won the Grade 3 Mint Julep at Churchill and on the strength of that showing – and her overall form – Pin Up Betty paid just $3.78 as the heavy favorite. She was timed in 1:48.16 over firm going.
Trained by Mike Maker for her breeder, Three Diamonds Farm, Pin Up Betty is by Constitution out of I’m Betty G, by Into Mischief.
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