Monday, August 06, 2012

SPECTACULAR SKY DAZZLES IN BARB’S DANCER

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (August 5, 2012) – In a performance reminiscent of her commanding 9 ¼-length front-running allowance win at Calder Casino & Race Course in mid-July, Miller Racing, LLC’s Spectacular Sky captured the first stakes race of her career on Sunday when leading throughout to take the $55,000 Barb’s Dancer, covering the 6 ½-furlong distance in 1:17.04.

Trained by Marty Wolfson, who saddled three of the six fillies in the Barb’s Dancer and finished first, second, and third, Spectacular Sky was a bit lax out of the gate but was pushed to the lead aggressively by jockey Luis Saez to set opening fractions of :21.82 and :44.99.


“When she broke, she really didn’t want to go the lead,” Saez said. “For some reason, when she sees the other fillies get in front, she waits and doesn’t want to go. So I knew I had to put her into the race. But once we made the lead, she picked things up immediately.”

Never presented with a challenge down the backstretch, Spectacular Sky cleared the turn with a three-length advantage, and the result was never in doubt down the lane as the filly coasted under the wire 4 ½ lengths clear of her nearest pursuers, stable-mates Indulgence and Nakano.

“I still had a lot of filly left,” Saez said of Spectacular Sky. “She was much the best today.”

A popular winner at odds of 4-5, Spectacular Sky returned $3.80, $2.80, and $2.10 for the victory. Indulgence paid $7.60 and $3.80 for second, while Nakano brought back $2.60 when beaten a nose for third.

Bred in Kentucky by John and Mildred Joyce, Spectacular Sky is now a four-time winner in 15 career starts with lifetime earnings of $187,106. The daughter of Sky Mesa began her career in southern California where she finished second in the Grade 3 Las Flores Stakes in mid-March, three months before arriving at the Wolfson barn in south Florida.

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