Coach no longer Seeking that first win

Diego Sanchez hustled his gray charge to the front straight from the gate Sunday at Arlington Park, and Seeking the Coach responded by wiring a field of maiden-claimers by a clear-cut five lengths.

In the process, the gelding becomes the 94th horse to break maiden among my 187-horse list of 2010 juvenile sales prospects. It's a milestone win for the class, pushing the percentage of winners above the halfway mark -- now 50.3 percent of my recommendations have managed to win at least one race.

Seeking the Coach was 10th in his March debut at Gulfstream Park, then 10th again going a mile on turf for a $25,000 tag at Arlington in a race that did see him shuffled around a bit in traffic. Switched to Arlington's Polytrack surface and dropped to the $10,000 level, the gelding finished third in consecutive starts before collecting his first win on Sunday. He covered the 5.5 furlongs in 1:05.98 and paid $10.80 to win.

The gray or roan son of El Prado-Oxford Scholar, by Seeking the Gold, was bred in Florida by Adena Springs. He is trained by James DiVito and owned by DiVito and Lee Battaglia.

I recommended the horse prior to his selling for $26,000 as Hip 237 at the 2010 Ocala April sale of 2-year-olds in training. I've long been a fan of his late sire, and his dam was a 2-year-old stakes winner who produced two stakes winners and another stakes-placer of her own from an accomplished brace of earlier foals.

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