KOALITION IS DASHING IN EARNING FIRST STAKES VICTORY
LOS ALAMITOS RACE COURSE, CYPRESS, CA… Bobby Cox’s homebred mare Koalition prepped for her stakes debut at Los Alamitos by showing off her quick turn of foot at 110 yards on December 17. The Heath Taylor-trainee displayed that explosive ability once again, this time in a wire-to-wire victory in the $25,000 Dashingly Handicap on Sunday night at Los Alamitos.
Ridden by Jose Nicasio, Koalition flew to the lead from post number eight and controlled the race every step of the way while posting a ¾ length win in the 350-yard race. In the process, the Apollitical Jess filly out of the Grade 1 stakes winning mare Nellie Delaney covered the 350 yards in a time of :17.446 in the Dashingly. Prior to her California arrival, the 4-year-old Texas-bred had previously won an allowance event at Lone Star Park and competed in the Rainbow Oaks at Ruidoso Downs.
“She shipped in and ran a super, super race, a really fast race at Lone Star the last time we ran her,” Taylor said. “She had always shown a lot of talent, a lot of promise, just had had a lot of bad luck in the finals. Bobby Cox and I had talked about how she was fast, had made some money and is really well bred being out of Nellie Delaney, so we needed some black type on her record. Los Alamitos is obviously second to none and has made such a commitment to the mare program and so that (110-yard) race really sharpened her up here. She had not had an out here and before we jumped into stakes that we should at least run her once here. She handled that really well and it kind of served as her official work to start in the filly and mare campaign. She’s really coming into herself, and she’s won three in a row now. The whole goal was to get here, find her a stakes race and hopefully run in the top three. Winning a race named after a great mare like Dashingly – friends of mine had campaign Dashingly – it was good. She’s got stakes win so we are very, very pleased. “
A winner in six of 14 career starts, Koalition earned $13,750 for the win in the Dashingly. Her career bank account is now $86,226. With a pair of wins, including her Dashingly stakes win, now in tow, Koalition and her connections will now start looking a big-time schedule in the mare stakes division at Los Alamitos.
“The mare is very sound, very healthy and that was the goal the whole time, to take advantage of the stakes program here. Like I said, the mare program is second to none. There’s the top level and then you have some under races and handicaps. Every three or four weeks there’s a great race for the mares. I nominated for the Charger Bar, and I thought that she was good enough to get in, but she had not enough stakes quality to get weighted into. I think with this stakes race and winning three in row, she’s proved her worth and hopefully she’ll graduate to the top end of the mare races, and we’ll see how she fares there.”
Daniel and Carol Lee’s Cir Lady Moon, another new arrival to Southern California, earned $5,625 for running second in the Dashingly in her California Debut. Armando Cervantes piloted her for trainer Monty Arrossa. Cir Lady Moon had previously raced in the Intermountain racing circuit.
Gentry Farms’ In My Heart earned $3,125 for running third. Suzy De Capi, Crystal Prize, Jess Anothercommando, Bizarrely, Looks On Fleek, and Pleased As Punch completed the field.
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