Wink gives trainer Ward third straight Colleen Stakes win
Not only did trainer Wesley Ward win the $75,000 Colleen Stakes for the third consecutive year and fifth time overall, he swept the exacta, as Wink held off stablemate Flying Aletha by three-quarters of a length in the turf sprint for 2-year-old fillies.
Ward sent out Ruby Notion (2015), Red Lodge (2016), and Mae Never No (2018) to win the Colleen, and last year added another win when Foolish Humor was promoted to victory via disqualification.
Favored Wink ($4.40), a Midshipman filly racing in the colors of Stonestreet Stables, remained unbeaten in two career starts with her victory. The filly won her debut on June 12 on the Belmont Park turf, drawing clear to win by 1 1/4 lengths. That race has become a key maiden as runner-up Zippy Baby, third-place Alda, and seventh-place Seguro were all subsequent winners. Two other also-rans, Mrs Frankel and River Tiber, were second and third, respectively, in recent races at Saratoga.
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In the Colleen Stakes, Wink and jockey Antonio Gallardo led throughout, ticking off swift early splits of 21.12 seconds for the quarter and 43.97 for the half on a turf course rated firm. The filly opened a three-length lead into the stretch, but then had to work in the final furlong to hold off a late rally from Flying Aletha, who had been tracking her in second under Monmouth leading rider Paco Lopez. The stablemates came to the wire together, with Kewpie Doll another 2 1/4 lengths back in third. The final time for the five furlongs was 56.74 seconds.
This was the U.S. stakes debut for Flying Aletha, who had been 10th in the Group 3 Albany Stakes at the renowned Royal Ascot meeting after leading early on the good-to-soft going. The Albany has also proved to be a key race: Unbeaten winner Dandalla came back to take the Group 2 Duchess of Cambridge in England, while third-place finisher Mother Earth returned to win a Group 3 in Ireland.
Ward told Monmouth publicity after the race that his two fillies could now take divergent paths, as Wink has indicated her preference for turf sprints while Flying Aletha may want to run longer.
"[Wink] can’t run a jump on the dirt," Ward said. "But you put her on the turf and she flies. She’s all go. ... It looks like five-eighths is her game, though. Hopefully we don’t have to go five-eighths and a jump. [Flying Aletha] went over to Ascot and came back, and that can take a little toll on them sometimes, but she ran a good race here. I wasn’t quite sure which one was better. Wink showed us a lot on the grass, but the other one looked very good when we had her in Florida. Flying Aletha is a bigger filly, so maybe the longer they go the better she will be.”