Vigorous Titan takes off-the-turf Colonel Power Stakes

A rainy Friday and Saturday took the starch out of the $50,000 Colonel Power Stakes, which lost seven horses to scratches after it was moved from turf to dirt, but the surface switch was just fine with the connections of Vigorous Titan, who surged past favored Speightsong and won the Colonel Power by two lengths Saturday at Fair Grounds.

Winless in three turf starts, Vigorous Titan now has won 8 of 14 races on dirt, and after performing poorly in his previous stakes try this meet, finishing eighth in the off-the-turf Bonapaw, he might have run a career best to capture the Colonel Power under Cisco Torres.

El Botas and El Seventyseven set solid fractions of 22.29 and 45.52 seconds while Vigorous Titan, breaking from the outside post in a field reduced to six, stalked four to five wide around the turn. Speightsong was ahead of him around the bend, and took the lead at the top of the stretch, but Vigorous Titan descended at the three-sixteenths pole, collared Speightsong at the furlong grounds, and went on to a decisive victory. He ran 5 1/2 furlongs on a fast track in a snappy 1:03.67 and paid $6.80 as the second choice. D’Cajun Cat finished a well-beaten third. Bayerd, who might have been favored on dirt, was among the scratched horses.

The 5-year-old Vigorous Titan is by Cowboy Cal and out of the Unbridled’s Song mare Carambola. Bernie Flint trains him and co-owns the horse with Miles Childers.