Chelsea Durand Photo

Miss Sky Warrior wins stakes debut in G3 Tempted

by Brian Bohl

Arlene's Sun Star Stable's Miss Sky Warrior made her stakes debut a winning effort, outkicking Berned and Eloquent Riddle in midstretch to post a three-quarters-of a-length score in Saturday's Grade 3, $200,000 Tempted for 2-year-old fillies at one mile on Aqueduct Racetrack's main track. 

Miss Sky Warrior, who broke her maiden at Parx Racing last out on October 15, handled the step up in class and distance with aplomb, staying just off Sky Gesture's early fractions of 23.73 seconds through a quarter-mile and 47.55 for a half.

Miss Sky Warrior overtook Sky Gesture nearing the quarter pole and fended off late challenges for her second win in three career starts.

"She's a little tough," Lopez said. "I had to hold her.  The plan coming in was to stalk from off the lead. At the sixteenth-pole she started to change leads and drew away. Today, she was ready and I especially like her going two-turns moving forward."

Off as the 2-1 favorite out of post 4 for trainer Kelly Breen, Miss Sky Warrior paid $6.20 on a $2 win wager and nearly tripled her previous career earnings to bring her total to $168,750.

"I guess it was a pretty good learning curve," Breen said. "Paco said she was really eager down the backstretch to get her to go this far. I didn't think it wouldn't be too much to have to rate her because she's so kind in the mornings, but I guess after two races, she's starting to get the knack of being a racehorse and wanting to 'go, go, go.' So Paco said he held her for as long as he could. In the stretch, she got in the front and got a little green, but he said her stride never shortened. She was just a little green and she'll learn from this. That's a good sign as far as I can tell.

"I'll wait to see what we're going to do," he added. "There's a possibility of her staying here, I know they move to the inner track, and there's a possibility of going to Florida. I'll talk to the owners and see what we're going to do."

Berned, also making her stakes debut for trainer Thomas Albertrani, was the runner-up in moving to 1-2-0 in three career starts. Eloquent Riddle, for trainer Chad Brown, finished third in her first stakes start.

Cursor, For Honor, Sky Gesture and Gran Cherry completed the order of finish.