For Immediate Release: Tuesday, July 2, 2013 215.639.9000 ext. 3290 or 3329 Contact: Keith Jones, Announcer – Philadelphia Park @ kjones@parxracing.com
TURF SPRINTERS TO BATTLE FRIDAY IN G3 PARX DASH Terrific Field to Vie for $200K Purse
A sensational field of seven turf sprinters will line up to contest one of the two biggest turf sprints on the Parx Racing schedule, the Grade 3 $200,000 Parx Dash Friday afternoon. The Parx Dash has quickly become a major event on the turf sprint calendar. The fact that it was granted graded status after just its first two runnings speaks to the quality of the competition here over its first two years and Friday’s field may well be the best yet.
The 2-1 morning line choice is the incomparable Ben’s Cat. The seven year-old gelded son of Parker’s Storm Cat is a two-time winner of Parx’s biggest turf sprint, the G3 Turf Monster Handicap, is the defending champion in this event and sports an almost unthinkable career record of 21 wins in 32 lifetime starts. As a turf sprint specialist, he’s also won an astounding $1,477,140 over his career for legendary trainer King Leatherbury and racing under his owner’s moniker, The Jim Stable. While beaten in his most recent start at Penn National in the PA Governor’s Cup, he really had no chance. Racing outside on the turn he was almost wiped out by a horse on his inside that suddenly bore out and yet, he made a remarkable recovery to get up for third. His regular rider Julian Pimentel will come in for the ride.
Opening up at 5-2 is budding turf star, Tightend Touchdown. While the majority of his 18 career starts have come on dirt, a recent $35,000 claim by trainer Jason Servis and a switch to the turf have made the four year-old gelded son of Pure Precision a big time player. On May 16th on the Belmont course, he won wire to wire finishing six furlongs in 1:07.57 and then came back to miss the Penn National course record for five furlongs by 1/100th of a second, hitting the wire in :54.62 in winning the aforementioned Governor’s Cup. Friday he’ll be seeking his fourth straight win for Mr. Amore Stable with Javier Castellano aboard.
Trainer Todd Pletcher will send his top turf sprinter, Melynk Racing Stables, Inc.’s Bridgetown. The six year-old son of Speightstown has won over $971,000 over his tremendous career and was second to Ben’s Cat in this race in 2012. Parx current leading jockey John Bisono will pick up the mount.
Completing the field are Wild Memories (5-1, Guadalupe Guerrero), Luckysdream (12-1, Ramon Preciado), Catalactic (12-1, Michael Baird), and Spring in the Sky (8-1, Bruce Brown).
