JOCKEY QUOTES
MIKE SMITH, SUMTER, WINNER: “He’s such a professional. So straight forward and just so full of class. You get to know him pretty quick. First and foremost, I’d like to thank Mrs. Ramona Bass and her son Perry for giving me the opportunity to ride this colt when Flavien couldn’t be here. When Mr. Mandella called me and told me I could ride him I was really excited. I was glad I was able to pull it off. It was a tremendous race. All three of those horses are going to go on to win some pretty big races.
“In going into the first turn, he runs his left lead really, really well and you can really use that to your advantage sometimes, especially in good milers. In the first turn he went over to his left lead and opened up about another half a length on the horse inside of me, so I went ahead and used it to my advantage and secured the lead. I was able to give him somewhat of a breather in between and we were running quick, but I mean he does things so easy. Then again on the second turn he ran it really, really well, he reminded me a lot of a horse called Lure that I use to ride, their left lead is just so good. We were able to hold on because there were some really good horses coming at us.”
TRAINER QUOTES
RICHARD MANDELLA, SUMTER, WINNER: “He’s a quick horse, there’s no question about that. It looked like nobody really knew who was going to go or not and when they got around the turn, Mike just decided to go. Very happy with the way he did it and we’ll probably look at that race (at Churchill Downs) on Derby Day at a mile and one eighth on grass (Grade II, $500,000, American Turf 1 1/16th).”
NOTES: The winning owner/breeders are Perry Bass II and Ramona Bass.
