There Goes Molly, splashing to another victory

Biding her time behind the front-runners and taking a wide berth around the final turn, There Goes Molly splashed to an easy victory Wednesday afternoon over a sloppy track at Belmont.

Though sent off at 7/1 and paying $16 to win, There Goes Molly won like a 4/5 shot in the field of $10,000 claimers. In a hand-ride by Eddie Castro, she overhauled the early leaders despite their benefiting from sensible early fractions (23.33, 47.24) and scored by an easy 6 3/4 lengths over 3/1 second-favored Red to Positive. Third-place Sweethearts Kiss was nearly 20 lengths behind the winner in a final time of 1:39.51.

It was the second lifetime win for There Goes Molly, who has earned $43,836 from 12 lifetime starts. The bay filly by Chief Seattle-Hey Darla, by Evansville Slew, was bred in New York by Pegasus Farms Inc. She is now owned and trained by Randi Persaud.

I shortlisted There Goes Molly as a Priority 1 animal on a list of 48 recommendations at last year's Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale of 2-year-olds in training, where she failed to sell on a mere $6,000 bid as Hip 176. Though quite closely inbred (2x3) to Seattle Slew, she was relatively clean and straight, and breezed 11-flat, which was a fair time at EASMAY over a slow track. All three of her older siblings had started, two were already winners (now all three are), and I admitted later on this blog being shocked that this half-sister to stakes-winning R BETTY GRAYBULL (who has now earned nearly $430K) couldn't bring more than a $6,000 bid.

On Wednesday, I liked Molly's chances in the group she faced, despite her 10/1 morning-line odds. And I thought she should move up in the slop, as she'd placed over off-tracks prior. Clearly, she loved the conditions, and won for fun despite running on the wrong lead until deep in the stretch.

It's fair to say that Molly has come alive under the training of Persaud, as well, with a second-place finish and now two consecutive wins since apparently being sold to Persaud privately by prior owners and coming over from the barn of Leo O'Brien. Molly has scratched-out of a couple of races since her mid-April maiden-breaker, but usually because she was entered "main-track-only" in turf events that stayed on the grass. Clearly Persaud has the filly dialed-in pretty well and was working very hard to find her another race.

To follow the exploits of There Goes Molly and the 186 other horses I selected from several of last year's juvenile sales, check out the complete list at the bottom of this prior post.