Concertos Pride collects second 'W' in P.R.

Stalking the pace set by Humorus Girl and taking over decisively in mid-stretch, 2010 sales-tip Concertos Pride scored her second lifetime victory in six starts at Hipodromo Camarero in Puerto Rico Monday, by a margin of four and a half lengths.

Apprentice rider Edwin Gonzalez patiently bided his time aboard the winner before pouncing on the tiring leader, who had set honest early fractions of 23.80, 47.10 and 1:12.65 in the seven furlong race for $24,000 claimers. The final eighth was loped in a leisurely 14.39.

Concertos Pride is conditioned by Raul Perez for owners Establo Rio Canas. She was bred in Florida by Ocala Stud. On Monday, she was sent off at 1/2 odds in the $24,000 claimer, and allowed bettors to breathe easy by the sixteenth-pole as such a heavy favorite should.

With the win, Concertos Pride has earned $15,250 from two wins and two second-place finishes in six starts.

Concertos Pride (Concerto-Epistolary, by Deputy Minister) was purchased for just $5,000 as Hip 1003 at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co. April auction of 2-year-olds in training. I selected her as a prospect because, though her dam was never a winner, she was a daughter of an excellent broodmare sire in Deputy Minister. And, she'd already produced nine winners from 13 foals, including four stakes horses by four different sires: G3-placed TEXTURIZER (On to Glory); G2-placed Deputy Lad (Mecke), who had 11 wins and earned $278,367; eight-time winner Valid Chance (Valid Appeal); and Epistola (Buckaroo). Epistolary also bore a winner of over $100,000 by Forest Wildcat, a multiple winner of $97K by Robyn Dancer, and a multiple-race-winners by Pentelicus and Notebook.

One sign of a good broodmare is her ability to do solid work with almost any sire, and Epistolary absolutely has proven herself in that regard. Why Concertos Pride sold so cheaply, I'll likely never be sure. Her breeze of 22.2 was slower than many at the sale, but hardly a bad quarter for an early 2-year-old. And I predicted that, based on pedigree, she'd likely be better with age and distance, yet she's already won twice at 2.

It might "just" be at Camarero, but had she stayed in the States, I'm sure a buyer could have spent a lot more to get a lot worse.

With her victory, Concertos Pride pushes the combined record of my 187 sales-tips of 2010 to 38 wins from 220 starts; a strike rate of 17.3 percent. They have won or placed 100 times from those outings, an in-the-money rate of 45.5 percent. Their earnings have reached a combined $1,263,475, which averages $5,743 per start.

Track the class in its entirety in the list at the bottom of this former post.