LOUISVILLE – Perfect Sting, a beautiful, tenacious filly who likes nothing more than to win, staked a major claim to be crowned America’s champion female turf star with a dashing win in the Filly and Mare Turf over a mile and three eighths yesterday at Churchill Downs.
At the wire, the long-striding bay with jockey Jerry Bailey sitting quietly, pushed home ahead of longshot Tout Charmant with Catella, the German filly, a non-threatening third.
Perfect Sting’s win topped off a terrific winning season. Starting in March, she won four straight stakes, including the Diana Handicap at Saratoga, before failing as the 1-2 favorite in a Keeneland stake three weeks ago.
Who beat her at Keeneland? None other than Tout Charmant, who tried valiantly yesterday to go by her again in the Breeders’ Cup, but no dice.
Perfect Sting, a homebred who started second choice at 5-1, is owned by industrialist and racetrack tycoon Frank Stronach and trained by Joe Orseno, who is steadily establishing a formidable training reputation.
The big shock of the race was Petrushka, who was slammed at the betting window into 7-5 favoritism. She had won three straight Grade 1 stakes in Ireland, England and France and appeared to have this race at her mercy.
Her jockey, John Murtagh, tucked her in nicely along the fence from post position one, which is her usual running style. But she was struggling early, running well behind the pack.
When Murtagh called on her to run, she gave him nothing.
Spanish Fern, a 25-1 longshot, failed to finish. When she came out of the gate, jockey Victor Espinoza said he heard a crack in the rear and opted to pull her up – which is just as well. She was found later to have injured her left hind leg.