By Santa Anita Publicity
ARCADIA, Calif. (Dec. 28, 2014) – Longshot Harlington’s Rose wheeled into the stretch four-deep and ran down favorites Awesome Baby and Tribal Gal to take the $75,000 Kalookan Queen Stakes by 1 ¼ lengths under Joe Talamo. Fifth turning for home, Harlington’s Rose, trained by Steve Knapp, ran into splits of 21.66, 44 flat, 1:08.90 and came home 6 ½ furlongs in 1:15.48.
Off at 17-1 in a field of eight fillies and mares, Harlington’s Rose paid $37.60, $12.60 and $8.60. In her first stakes win, she improved her overall mark to 18-3-5-0 and with the winner’s share of $60,000, she increased her earnings to $277,680 for owners Halasz, Johnson, Newhart and partners.
“She’s been training as good as she possibly could,” said Knapp. “In her last race at Del Mar (five furlong turf allowance on Nov. 22), she was blocked from the sixteenth pole to the wire and she still only got beat 1 ¾ lengths. She’s a good filly.”
Talamo, who got his second win of the day in the Kalookan Queen, was happy to get acquainted with the 3-year-old California-bred filly by Harlington.
“It’s my first time on this filly,” he said. “She was real classy. She broke well and she put me in a good spot early on. We had a great trip the whole way around. I got her out the last quarter of a mile and she had a nice turn of foot. Steve just told me ‘Good luck’ before the race.”
The second choice at 5-2, Tribal Gal overhauled 6-5 favorite Awesome Baby coming to the furlong pole and finished 2 ¾ lengths clear of Doinghardtimeagain. Ridden by Rafael Bejarano, Tribal Gal paid $4.20 and $4.00.
Doinghardtimeagain, who was off at 5-1, closed well with Elvis Trujillo and paid $5.40 to show.
For Harlington’s Rose’s pedigree, click http://www.pedigreequery.com/harlingtons+rose.