We Miss Artie wins Spiral; Coastline 3rd

FLORENCE, Ky. - We Miss Artie rallied late and won the Grade 3, $550,000 Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati Spiral Stakes by a nose on Saturday at Turfway Park.

We Miss Artie, trained by Todd Pletcher, ridden by John Velazquez and owned by Ken and Sarah Ramsey, made a move in the late stretch to catch leaders Harry’s Holiday, a 15-1 long shot, and Oaklawn Park shipper Coastline in the prep race in the road to the Kentucky Derby

We Miss Artie finished the 11/8-miles in 1:52. 26 and paid$9.20, $5.80 and $4.20. Harry’s Holiday, ridden by Rosie Napravnik, held on for second, and Coastline, ridden by Stewart Elliott, finished third, beaten less than a neck.

Coastline ran twice at Oaklawn before shipping to Turfway. Coastline finished third in the Smarty Jones Stakes on Jan. 20 and was fourth in the Feb. 17 Southwest Stakes.

We Miss Artie earned 50 points and has a total of 60 in the system Churchill Downs uses to determine who qualifies for the May 3 Kentucky Derby.

SUNLAND DERBY Field of 9 entered

Two horses who made their most recent starts at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs and four trained by Hall of Famers Bob Baffert and Todd Pletcher are among nine entered in today’s Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Park Derby at Sunland Park, N.M. Baffert is represented by Midnight Hawk and Chitu, who both ran second in their last Grade 2 races at Santa Anita. Pletcher has Gulfstream Park winners Commissioner and Global Strike. The race offers 85 preference points for the Kentucky Derby. The field also includes Tanzanite Cat, the winner of the $150,000 Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn on Jan. 20, who will be ridden by Norberto Arroyo Jr., and Bourbonize, who broke his maiden at Oaklawn before finishing sixth in the Southwest Stakes on Feb. 17. Tanzanite Cat was fifth in the Southwest.

Kentucky Derby leaderboard

PL. HORSE POINTS

  1. We Miss Artie ................................60

  2. Samraat ..........................................60

  3. Hoppertunity ..................................55

  4. Intense Holiday ..............................53

  5. Wildcat Red ....................................50

  6. Ring Weekend ................................50

  7. California Chrome ..........................50

  8. Tapiture ..............................42

  9. Midnight Hawk ...............................32

  10. Albano ..........................................24

Sports, Pages 35 on 03/23/2014

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