Queen of Cause provides premier career strike

Frank Davino's, Queen of Cause (Jorge Ruiz 9-1), caught pacesetter, Stiva, in deep stretch after a flying leap down the middle, to edge clear at Laurel Park in Maryland on Saturday. This gave trainer Anthony Lynch, his first ever win.

Queen of Cause completed a little over1 mile in 1:41:5/10 seconds, over a firm All Along turf course, claiming Maryland's debut event since mid-March.

AMAZING

“It's amazing. I want to cry so bad right now,” an emotional Anthony, 18, said: “Thank you to all those that believed in me since I was really young."

Queen of Cause was bumped early, racing next to last, in a field of ten. She had to circle right round all contenders, closing ground steadily to prevail by 1.4 lengths.

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Contrail (Yuichi Fukunaga 4-6), lived up to his reputation, by remaining honed in to win the Japanese Triple Crown this year, after blasting some hefty rivals, during the Japanese Derby's 87th running, on Sunday.

The colt began abrasively fast, stalking those ahead of him a few lengths back, until the final turn over 2,400 meters on Tokyo's turf track.

FIVE ATTEMPTS

"This horse's talent is depthless," Yuichi declared. "His potential is literally in the chosen elite category."

With 200 meters to go, Contrail opened up a lovely lead, before yachting across the finish line in 2:24:1/10 seconds. It was his third Grade 1 win - an unbeaten player in five attempts.

Salios, next best, found second as he did in part one of the Triple Crown preliminaries, Satsuki-Sho. Weltreisende was third not far away.

Yuichi's second bag in the Tokyo Yushun, was engineered inside the usual curtain of restraint, as all of Japan's races have been able to proceed quietly for crisis period.

The 3,000-meter Kikka-sho, will be in October at Kyoto to complete leg three.. Contrail will aim to become Japan's eighth Triple Crowner, and first since Orfevre in 2011, God willing.

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With a recent race under her belt, Gary and Mary West's homebred, Fighting Mad (Abel Cedillo 3-1), took to the front, never allowing anything near her, to clamp Sunday's $200,000 Santa Maria Stakes. Trained by hall-of-famer, Bob Baffert, the daughter of New Year's Day seized a mile in 1:42:1/10 seconds, as more favored, Ce Ce (Victor Espinoza 2-1), fatigued into third place. Hard Not to Love checked in second.

She broke like a canon from the stalls and is not that easy to hold, so Abel Cedillo had his work cut out to slow her up a bit. Fighting Mad has her very own agenda which she sticks to rigidly.

Hard Not to Love, with only use of her left eye, proved difficult for jockey, Mike Smith, in the parade ring, delaying procedures by a few minutes. She still ran well to be so concerned at the line.