Saturday, October 18, 2008

BACKBACKGONE NOSE WINNER OF JACK GOODMAN STAKES

ARCADIA, Calif. (AP) _ Backbackbackgone survived a photo finish to win Saturday's $80,100 Jack Goodman Stakes for 2-year-olds by a nose over Charlie's Moment at Santa Anita's Oak Tree meeting.

The victory was jockey Rafael Bejarano's fourth on the 10-race card.

Backbackbackgone ran six furlongs in 1:08.85 and paid $6, $3 and $2.80 as the wagering favorite. Charlie's Moment returned $5.40 and $3.40, while Arashi Cat paid $3.40 to show.


Backbackbackgone improved to 3-0 in his career. He didn't race this summer because of sore shins.

Ventana, trained by Bob Baffert, was fourth coming off a last-place finish in the Champagne Stakes at New York's Belmont Park on Oct. 4.

Details R Sketchy, owned by composer Burt Bacharach, was fifth, losing for the first time in three races in his stakes debut.

JOCKEY QUOTES

RAFAEL BEJARANO, BACKBACKBACKGONE, WINNER: “He’s a very nice horse. He showed a lot of speed away from the gate and he wanted to go to the lead. I was trying to get him to relax, and when Gomez (Garrett, aboard Details R Sketchy) came up inside us at the half-mile pole, we had a target and that helped. When we came into the stretch, I was trying to get him to switch leads, but he didn’t want to. At the sixteenth pole, the five-horse (Charlie’s Moment) was really coming, and for a second I thought I was beat. I moved my horse close to him because I thought the other horse was intimidated, and I think he was. My horse is very game.”


TRAINER QUOTES

PETER MILLER, BACKBACKBACKGONE , WINNER: “I was real proud of the horse. He really dug in and showed a lot of courage. He had some minor ailments (explaining why he was out from May 25 until today), shins, 2-year-old stuff, just some minor baby stuff. We want to have a 3-year-old for down the road and try to stretch him out, so we didn’t want to squeeze the lemon dry. He is named after the expression Chris Berman of (ESPN) SportsCenter uses when someone hits a home run. He says, ‘Back back back, gone,’ so it’s real appropriate coming into the World Series.”

NOTES: The winning owners are Sean Gerson of Lake Forest, CA, and Walter and George Abt (Charleville Stables) of New York. In a racing rarity, each of the six starters in the Jack Goodman raced at a different race track in his last start. The Jack Goodman Stakes honors the man instrumental in the development of the Racetrack Industry Program at the University of Arizona. It previously was run as the Sunny Slope Stakes.

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