The Town Runs Sixth in Lambholm Turf Stakes
On Sunday afternoon at Tampa Bay Downs, The Town finished sixth in the $110,000 Lambholm South Sophomore Turf Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile turf test for trainer Brad Cox.
Coming into the race off an encouraging maiden victory, expectations were understandably high. Unfortunately, the race shape did not play to his strengths.
In familiar fashion, The Town was a bit slow into stride leaving the gate and was immediately bumped and shuffled toward the rear, finding himself ninth and trailing after the opening stages. With the first quarter in :23.42 and the half in :48.87, the pace was honest but not demanding enough to soften the leaders significantly.
Down the backstretch, Irad Ortiz Jr. began to inch closer and asked The Town to improve position approaching the far turn. He did make up some ground, but with several lengths to find and plenty of traffic in front of him, he was left with too much to do. Swinging wide into the stretch, he continued on evenly but was unable to produce the same late turn of foot we had seen in his maiden score.
The winner, Mr. Mo’s Magic, stopped the clock in 1:43.20, with The Town finishing sixth in the field of nine.
Final Thoughts
This was not the result we were hoping for, particularly after the momentum he brought into the race. That said, these sophomore turf stakes can be highly trip-dependent, and losing position early over this distance made the task significantly more difficult.
Our team will connect with Cox to ensure The Town came out of the race in good order and map out the next steps. He has already shown us the ability to finish strongly, and this effort is best viewed as a learning step as he continues to develop.
