Angled outside in the turn, Prospective rallied down the middle of the track and wore down Wildcat Creek in the final strides to post a half-length win Saturday in the $100,000 Pasco Stakes for 3-year-olds at Tampa Bay Downs.

Prospective, who was making his first start since finishing last of 13 in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs last fall, returned $7.20 as the second choice of the field of 10.

Ridden by Luis Contreras for trainer Mark Casse, covered the seven furlongs in 1:23.88 while winning his third race from five career starts. He previously won the Grade 3 Grey on Polytrack at Woodbine.

Wildcat Creek, second in last month's Inaugural at Tampa Bay, ran game in defeat, finishing 1 4/5 lengths in front of favored Adirondack King.

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Mike Welch, DRF

 

 One day after Gulfstream Park’s photo-finish camera just barely separated the top two finishers in the Marshua’s River Stakes it found nothing to choose between Delightful Mary and R Holiday Mood, who dead-heated for first in Sunday’s $60,000 Ocala Stakes.

R Holiday Mood turned in a game effort, setting the pace from what appeared the deeper going near the rail and withstanding a near stretch-long bid from the 4-5 All Due Respect before hanging on to finish on even terms with Delightful Mary. Delightful Mary raced well-placed just off the leaders, angled out for clearance near the eighth pole, and appeared to get up in the final stride, only to  settle for a dead heat.

All Due Respect forced the pace from the outset and gave way grudgingly in late stretch to finish another length farther back in third.

“I thought she’d gotten up,” said Mark Casse who trains Delightful Mary for owner John Oxley. “I don’t think she saw that other horse down there on the inside.”

 “When they crossed the wire I thought she got beat,” said R Holiday’s Mood’s trainer, Todd Pletcher. “We got half-lucky anyway.”   

The Ocala, which was restricted to Florida-bred fillies and mares, was just the second start over dirt for Delightful Mary. The first resulted in a third-place finish in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

“It’s not an easy transition from Polytrack to dirt and I still haven’t figured it out,” said Casse. “But she worked well at Churchill Downs before the Breeders’ Cup and I did work her three times at Palm Meadows so I was confident she would handle it well.”

R Holiday Mood was making her first start since June in the one-mile Ocala.

“I was really proud of her effort,” said Pletcher. “I was concerned she wasn’t ready to go a mile. I had her entered in an allowance race," referring to a six-furlong race on Dec. 24, “but she tied up the day before and I had to scratch her. She ran awfully hard today so I might not come back with her in the Sunshine Millions Sprint.”

Delightful Mary returned $7.40 to win while R Holiday Mood paid $12.40. The pair completed a mile in 1:37.25 over the fast track.

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Bill Tallon, DRF

 

 It was just another weekend at the office for trainer Mark Casse.

On Saturday, Casse sent out his 90th winner in Saturday’s 10th and final race to establish a new record for a Woodbine meeting, breaking the late Frank Passero’s mark set in 1995.

On Sunday, Casse added another three wins, capped by Indian Pond’s score in the $150,800 Carotene. It was his meet-leading 10th stakes winner.

“It’s been a crazy year,” Casse said. “Things have just kind of come together.”

Indian Pond’s victory in the Carotene for owner/breeder Eugene Melnyk was a case in point.

The Carotene, a 1 1/8-mile race for Ontario-sired 3-year-old fillies, was taken off the turf. While Indian Pond’s best previous efforts had been on the grass, she took the switch in stride en route to a two-length victory.

Patrick Husbands, riding his 63rd winner of the meeting for Casse, was aboard the daughter of Speightstown, whose offspring generally have preferred sprinting.

“She’d trained really well on Polytrack,” Casse said. “I’d been more concerned about running her on soft turf; that would have been more like running her a mile and a quarter.”

“But she’s not really like any other Speightstown I’ve had. She just doesn’t have any speed.

“She’s really classy. She only goes when you ask her to go.”

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