Wild Bout Hilary takes Pago Hop; Lagynos wins Woodchopper

Wild Bout Hilary’s two grass starts before Saturday suggested she had little chance to win the $100,000 Pago Hop at Fair Grounds unless rain forced a move from turf to dirt. It did, and, racing on the lead over a sloppy track, Wild Bout Hilary dominated, winning by 5 1/4 lengths over favored Way to Be Marie in a route race for 3-year-old fillies.

Turf, dirt, dry, wet – doesn’t matter for the 3-year-old colt Lagynos. Last month, after several frustrating defeats, Lagynos broke through to win his first grass stakes, the Grade 3 Commonwealth Turf at Churchill Downs. But trainer Steve Asmussen and his Fair Grounds-based assistant Scott Blasi didn’t hesitate leaving Lagynos in the $100,000 Woodchopper when it, like the Pago Hop, wound up on sloppy dirt rather than turf. Lagynos proved much the best.

Cleverly snugged just behind the speed by jockey Edgar Morales, Lagynos found room past the three-sixteenths pole when rail-running Camaro Z faded after contesting the lead with Le Gris. Morales split the pair, Lagynos quickly opened daylight, and he easily held clear a belated rally from Tough Little Nut to score by 2 1/4 lengths.

“When I tipped to the inside and he saw the clear, he took off,” Morales said.

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Tough Little Nut was second by 3 1/2 lengths over Higgins Boat, another pace player, with Le Gris fourth. Favored Mc Vay, making his first start for trainer Cherie DeVaux, broke poorly, raced wide with an early move into contention onto the backstretch, and came up empty finishing seventh. Lagynos ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:44.80 over a sealed track and paid $8.40 as the second choice.

“His turf form has gotten really good,” Blasi said. “We know he likes the dirt; he’s run well on the dirt before. The last 3-year-old option of the year was hard to pass up.”

Asmussen trains Lagynos for Prince Sultan Bin Mishal Al Saud. Lagynos, by Kantharos out of Steamy, by Speightstown, was bred in Kentucky by Robert Spiegel and now is 14-4-2-3 with earnings over $750,000.

Wild Bout Hilary has won five races to Lagynos’s four, but her share of the Pago Hop purse boosted her earnings to only about $150,000. And while she won easily over Way to Be Marie, the runner-up clearly prefers turf, and it took Wild Bout Hilary 1:46.21 to cover 1 1/16 miles over the sloppy, sealed going.

After a half-mile in 48.67, Wild Bout Hilary coasted around the turn, riders on the chasing horses urging their mounts to close on the leader, whose jockey, C J McMahon, had yet to ask his mount. When he did, Wild Bout Hilary went well clear, with Way to Be Marie’s steady run nowhere near catching the winner while 4 1/4 lengths better than third-place Past Tense in a field that scratched down to six runners.

Wild Bout Hilary, $10.60 as the third choice, campaigns for 5 Finger Racing, Tanner Tracy the trainer. Bred by Clearsky Farms, the filly is by Midnight Lute out of Wild Bout Tiffany, by Wildcat Heir. A soggy, leaden afternoon in New Orleans worked out perfectly for the horse and her people.

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