Always B Miki’s progeny star at The Red Mile
It was a red-letter day for leading first season sire Always B Miki at the famed Red Mile harness racing track on Saturday (US time) with three winners on the card, including the Bluegrass Stakes winners Southwind Gendry and Perfect Sting.
Last month’s Pennsylvania Sires Stakes champion Southwind Gendry made light work of his $120,100 Bluegrass Stakes division for 2-year-old pacing colts and geldings.
Away fourth, Southwind Gendry moved to the top at the quarter pole and never looked back, winning comfortably by a length and a quarter in a new life time mark of 1:50 2/5.
The win was Southwind Gendry’s fifth in a row and seventh overall from just nine starts, taking his stakes earnings to $359,419 and making him the richest 2-year-old male pacer in North America this season.
Out of the stakes winning Cam’s Card Shark mare Gambler’s Passion, Southwind Gendry is from the maternal family of Sands A Flyin and is proving a bargain purchase for connections after having been snapped up for $30,000 at last year’s Lexington Selected Yearling Sale.
The overwhelming favourite in the final Bluegrass Stakes split of the day, Perfect Sting swept to the lead at the mid-way point and then fought off the challenge of the trailer Summa Cum Laude in the home stretch to score by three-quarters of a length in 1:50 flat.
Perfect Sting is now unbeaten in seven race day starts and has banked $254,450 in stakes to date.
The Brittany Farms and Val D’Or Farms homebred is out of the fastest 3-year-old pacing filly of all time, Shebestingin, a $760,000 earning daughter of Bettor’s Delight whose 2013 1:47 world record set at The Red Mile still stands today and was only lowered as the all age distaff record in 2019 by kiwi mare Shartin.
Perfect Sting’s trainer Joe Holloway, who also conditioned the youngster’s superstar sire and dam, believes that he could be the best horse that he’s ever trained, comparing him favourably to his greatest champions… “I said back in about March or April—he’s got the potential to be the best horse I’ve ever had, and I think he is”. “Nobody was this advanced at 2. Always B Miki wasn’t this advanced, Jenna’s Beach Boy wasn’t”.
Always B Miki was also represented by the 2-year-old winner Always Be Cool who broke through for his maiden win in a sub 1:55 mile rate.
On the same day another son of Always B Miki, Dontpassme Hanover was a smart winner over the older horses at The Meadowlands in 1:51 3/5.