Louisville, KY (Sports Network) – Fort Larned, winless in his first two starts this year, notched his initial victory of 2013 in dominating fashion Saturday night at Churchill Downs in the $500,000 Stephen Foster Handicap.<\/p>\n
Trained by Ian Wilkes and ridden by Brian Hernandez Jr., Fort Larned took the lead shortly after the start from 9-5 favorite Take Charge Indy in the 1 1\/8- mile stakes.<\/p>\n
Fort Larned continued to set the pace up the backstretch. The 5-year-old was followed by Take Charge Indy, Successful Dan, Golden Ticket, defending race winner Ron the Greek and 2011 Foster champ Pool Play.<\/p>\n
Sent off at 3-1 in the six-horse field, Fort Larned proved too strong as he pulled away down the stretch even as Golden Ticket moved into second, unable to challenge the leader.<\/p>\n
Owned by Janis Whitham, Fort Larned went on to post a 6 1\/4-length victory over Golden Ticket followed by Ron the Greek, 5-2 second pick Successful Dan, Pool Play and Take Charge Indy.<\/p>\n
The time for the Stephen Foster Handicap was 1:47.45 on a fast track, less than one-fifth of a second off the stakes and track record for 1 1\/8 miles of 1:47.28 established in 1999 by Victory Gallop.<\/p>\n
Fort Larned gains automatic entry into this year’s $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita with the win.<\/p>\n
After two disappointing starts to begin 2013, Fort Larned finally found the winner’s circle for the first time since claiming last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic.<\/p>\n
The Foster win was worth $329,181 as the 5-year-old went over the $4 million mark in career earnings. Fort Larned has now won nine of 22 lifetime starts for $4,031,417.<\/p>\n
The 5-year-old lost his rider, Hernandez, at the start of the Gulfstream Park Handicap to begin the 2013 campaign in March and was fifth in the Oaklawn Handicap on April 13.<\/p>\n
Fort Larned paid $8.60, $5.20 and $3.60. Golden Ticket returned $7.20 and $3.40, and Ron The Greek paid $3.20 to show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Louisville, KY (Sports Network) – Fort Larned, winless in his first two starts this year, notched his initial victory of 2013 in dominating fashion Saturday night at Churchill Downs in the $500,000 Stephen Foster Handicap. Trained by Ian Wilkes and ridden by Brian Hernandez Jr., Fort Larned took the lead shortly after the start from […]<\/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-9492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9492","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=9492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}