Hallandale Beach, FL (SportsNetwork.com) – Even-money favorite Liam’s Map proved a little too tough down the stretch and won Saturday’s $100,000 Harlan’s Holiday Stakes at Gulfstream Park.<\/p>\n
Trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by John Velazquez, Liam’s Map had to overcome rival Valid’s physical stretch drive to win the 1 1\/16-mile stakes in just his fourth career start.<\/p>\n
Liam’s Map pressed the early pace of Csaba until he went to the lead on the far turn. Valid, the 7-2 third pick in the eight-horse field, engaged Liam’s Map around the turn and the two battled through the stretch, banging against each other to the wire.<\/p>\n
Liam’s Map held on for a half-length victory over Valid with 2-1 second choice Pants On Fire finishing third.<\/p>\n
“We had a really good trip and he put in a really good fight with the other horse,” Velazquez said. “He hasn’t run in a lot of really tough races, but he ran really good. He’s inexperienced, but he put in a really good fight and that’s what counts. The other horse came to him and he fought all the way down to the wire.”<\/p>\n
Schivarelli was fourth followed by Rose to Gold, Hy Kodiak Warrior and Hampstead Heath. Csaba was eased down the stretch.<\/p>\n
The time for the Harlan’s Holiday was 1:42.51 on a fast track.<\/p>\n
Liam’s Map, owned by Teresa Viola racing Stables, added $60,000 to his bankroll which now stands at $164,800. The 3-year-old colt notched his first stakes win and his third victory overall.<\/p>\n
“We knew he had a lot of natural ability,” Pletcher said. “What I like is a good horse looked him in the eye and he responded. He’s still a horse that’s learning to run and with a race like that it could do him a lot of good because his last two wins have been pretty effortless.”<\/p>\n
Liam’s Map paid $4.20, $2.80 and $2.20. Valid returned $4.20 and $2.40, and Pants On Fire paid $2.20 to show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hallandale Beach, FL (SportsNetwork.com) – Even-money favorite Liam’s Map proved a little too tough down the stretch and won Saturday’s $100,000 Harlan’s Holiday Stakes at Gulfstream Park. Trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by John Velazquez, Liam’s Map had to overcome rival Valid’s physical stretch drive to win the 1 1\/16-mile stakes in just his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}