Woodbine Mohawk Park: Tall Drink Hanover strolls in She's A Great Lady

Tall Drink Hanover's cup runneth over in Saturday night's C$590,000 She's A Great Lady Stakes final for rookie pacing fillies at Woodbine Mohawk Park, converting a second-over journey into a career-best 1:51 1/5 clocking.

With Andrew McCarthy sitting in the bike, Tall Drink Hanover settled into the fifth position while Art Lecture (Louis-Philippe Roy) shot out to the early lead from post nine. Queen Of The Pride (David Miller) stayed on the rim from post six, and she was up to get the lead from Art Lecture at the 27-second opening quarter.

Queen Of The Pride would maintain the first position through middle-half stations of 55 4/5 and 1:23 3/5, with Sylph Hanover (Matt Kakaley) pulling first-up from fourth nearing the half and getting into second at three-quarters. Tall Drink Hanover had flushed the cover to sit second-over and was poised to strike as the fillies entered the lane.

In the stretch Queen Of The Pride was able to fend off challengers initially, but McCarthy cut his charge three-wide, and she would pace past in the final eighth. From there, Tall Drink Hanover kicked away to win by 2 3/4 lengths. Her Tony Alagna stable-mate Treacherous Reign (Yannick Gingras) came on to dead-heat for second with Prescient Beauty (Doug McNair), Queen Of The Pride held fourth, and Ideation Hanover (Jody Jamieson) collected fifth.

"It worked out great," remarked McCarthy. "I figured David would go with his filly and Matt would want to leave a little bit. I wasn't even too concerned if I had to come third-over. I knew that her kick in the stretch would probably be good enough, but it worked out great where I got a second-over trip. I couldn't ask for any better."

The victorious daughter of Captaintreacherous is trained by Alagna for owners Alagna Racing LLC., Marvin Katz, and Riverview Racing LLC. This was her fifth win from eight trips behind the gate, and she has now pocketed C$406,392. Bred by Hanover Shoe Farms Inc., Tall Drink Hanover was a $35,000 acquisition at the Standardbred Horse Sale and is out of Take Into Account (The Panderosa, 1:53 4/5, $32,914), a half-sister to Account Rollover (Rocknroll Hanover, 1:50, $259,925). She returned $4.20 to win.

"Normally it's $350,000, not $35,000 for us," joked Katz. "She was at the back-end of the sale, and of course we owned part of Captaintreacherous - Tony, Myron (Bell), and myself. There she was just in the ring and nothing was going on for whatever reason. She was four or five from the end of the first day at Harrisburg. We liked her. Perry Soderberg had pointed her out to us, and Tony had liked her and so forth. We were able to buy her for $35,000. It was a surprise to us."