White Flag upsets stablemate Disco Partner in Aqueduct Turf Sprint

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Christophe Clement finished first and second in Saturday’s $125,000 Aqueduct Turf Sprint Championship, just not in the order that most anticipated.

White Flag, a 10-1 shot under David Cohen, got the jump on his more heralded stablemate, the 3-5 Disco Partner ridden by Joel Rosario, and upset the Aqueduct Turf Sprint by three-quarters of a length. Disco Partner finished three-quarters of a length in front of Kitten’s Cat, who beat his Mike Maker-trained stablemate Hembree by a half-length for third. Blind Ambition, Dubini, and Fielder completed the order of finish.

The win was the fifth from 13 starts for White Flag, a 4-year-old son of War Front owned and bred by Robert S. Evans. He was coming off a fifth-place finish in the City of Hope Mile at Santa Anita, a race from which he emerged with a quarter crack in a hind foot.

White Flag was actually the 5-2 beaten favorite in this race last year.

“He’s not a very sound horse, but he can run,” Clement said. “His good races have always been good.”

White Flag was an up-close fourth as Dubini, Blind Ambition, and Fielder went out for the early lead. White Flag was outside of Kitten’s Cat, while Disco Partner was outside of White Flag.

Joel Rosario, wanting to get Disco Partner to save some ground, had to take back and guided Disco Partner to the rail entering the far turn.

Cohen had White Flag in between horses down the backside then was able to get in the clear around the far turn following Blind Ambition, who was chasing Dubini through a half-mile in 45.05 seconds.

Cohen asked White Flag to run at the three-sixteenths pole, he took over from an inside-rallying Kitten’s Cat and was able to outfinish Disco Partner, the 126-pound highweight, to the wire.

White Flag, who carried 122 pounds, covered the six furlongs in 1:07.98 and returned $22.60 to win.

“I expected [Disco Partner] to be in front of me,” Cohen said. “When he didn’t break that sharp and didn’t push the pace, I just rode my race like usual. Once I saw he wasn’t on me, I definitely wanted to tip out before he had any chance to get his momentum going.”

Rosario said he wanted to get Disco Partner covered up sooner than he did down the backside.

“Every time I looked inside, there was somebody in there,” Rosario said. “I had to lose my position before I got to the turn to try and cover up. He ran the last part, the trip in the beginning probably didn’t help.”

Said Clement: “I told Joel if he breaks well to go to the lead, I didn’t think there was that much speed on paper. Look, they both finished well.”

Clement said he may look to run White Flag one more time this year, perhaps in a route race in Florida or California.