Wit runs down Highly Respected to take Bay Shore by nose
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The second-time starter Highly Respected split horses at the five-sixteenths while Wit was five-wide at that point of the Grade 3, $200,000 Bay Shore Stakes at Aqueduct.
Advantage Highly Respected.
But in the stretch, Wit, coming off a six-month layoff, kept charging, first under a left-handed whip, then a right-handed one, from Jose Ortiz and was able to run down Highly Respected in the final stride to win the Bay Shore by a nose. It was 4 1/2 lengths back to Life Is Great in third.
It was a result that wasn’t clear to the winning connections of Wit until it was posted on the board.
“I 100 percent thought we lost it,” Mike Repole, part-owner of Wit, said.
“It looked like he got a good bob, but I wasn’t 100 percent sure that we got the win,” said Byron Hughes, assistant to trainer Todd Pletcher.
Ortiz felt the key to victory was Wit’s ability to break sharply from the gate and stay in close attendance to the pace. Slow starts were something that plagued Wit at age 2, even though he was good enough to overcome it to win his maiden by six lengths on Belmont Stakes Day and the Grade 3 Sanford by eight lengths on opening weekend of Saratoga.
Ortiz, based in South Florida for the Gulfstream winter meet, went to Palm Beach Downs last weekend to work Wit from the gate before the horse shipped to New York.
“He broke good today, he broke good at Palm Beach when I worked him and that was the key today,” said Ortiz, who won three races including two stakes on Saturday’s card. “Last year, he was a big 2-year-old, standing very awkwardly in the gate and breaking bad. He was still good, now breaking good he’ll be a lot better.”
In the stretch of the Bay Shore, Ortiz said he went left-handed hoping to stay away from Highly Respected. But when Ortiz saw Highly Respected kept going, he switched to his right-handed stick.
“I realized that horse kept digging in so I hit him right-handed and tried to meet him, when [Wit] saw [Highly Respected] he kept digging in,” Ortiz said.
Wit, a son of Practical Joke owned by Repole, St. Elias Stable and Gainesway Stable, covered the seven furlongs in 1:23.27 and returned $6 as the second choice. Wit was given a 90 Beyer Speed Figure.
Franco said he was happy with the way his horse ran coming off just a maiden win going six furlongs on Feb. 26.
“My horse ran really well second time out,” Franco said. “He’s still a baby and I think he has a bright future ahead of him.”