Pure Silver
The Spinaway Stakes has long been one of the most prestigious races on the calendar for 2-year-old fillies and has been captured by such fillies as Flanders, Meadow Star, Awesome Humor, and more recently Ashado. Last year’s edition proved to be a historic one when Sweet Loretta and Pretty City Dancer dead-heated for the win, the first time that had occurred in 41 runnings of the race.
A small field of five has been drawn for this year’s edition of the race, but what it lacks in size, it certainly makes up for it in depth.
Leading the field is Twin Creeks Racing Stables LLC’s Pure Silver, trained by Todd Pletcher.A New-York bred, Pure Silver is the only horse in the field with anything more than a maiden win to her name.
By the red-hot juvenile sire Mission Impazible, Pure Silver was a winner on debut back in June before extending her record to 2-from-2 in the Lynbrook Stakes, both of those starts were against state-bred company. The manner in which she won both races encouraged her connections enough to step her up to open company in Adirondack Stakes (G2). Pure Silver easily handled what looked to be a very overmatched field that day, winning the Adirondack by 9 ½ lengths in a final time of 1:17.22.
Her main rival in the Spinaway is likely to be the Chad Brown-trained Separationofpowers, owned by Klaravich Stables Inc. A $190,000 purchase as a weanling at Keeneland in 2015, the daughter of Candy Ride was well regarded going into her debut and went off as the 2-1 favorite.
Separationofpowers took the lead right out of the gates and never looked back, coasting home to an 11-¾ length victory going six furlongs. She has come back to work well since that race, and being by Candy Ride out of an Empire Maker mare, the seven-furlong distance of the Spinaway should only help her chances.
Rudy Rodriguez will look to add another Spinaway win to his resume with the debut-winning Lady Ivanka (he won the race in 2014 with Condo Commando). Like Condo Commando, Lady Ivanka is owned in a partnership that includes Michael Dubband, Bethlehem Stables LLC, Michael Imperio and Susan Montanye.
Lady Ivanka won her debut going just 5 ½ furlongs, but the way in which she won suggests the added distance will be no problem. After breaking a bit slow, the daughter of Tiz Wonderful sat behind the leaders early before drawing off to win by 8 lengths.
Also entered in the race are Maya Malibu, owned by My Meadowview Farm LLC and trained by Graham Motion, and Obvious Two, owned by Looch Racing Inc. and trained by Anthony Quartarolo.
A “Win and You’re In” event for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, the $350,000 Spinaway is carded as the 10th race on the Saturday program at Saratoga with an approximate post time of 6:11 pm ET.
