Lipstick City rolled to a 6 ¾-length victory in Sunday’s $75,000 Wasted Tears while making her main-track debut in the 1 1/16-mile stakes for fillies and mares had been scheduled to be run on turf.
Trainer David Fawkes and owners Steve Laymon, Will Robbins, Richard Broadbent IV and Bill Robbins made the decision to go ahead and run based on the breeding of the 4-year-old daughter filly, who is by City Zip out of an A.P. Indy mare.
“We made the right call,” Fawkes said. “When we saw the weather coming earlier in the week we talked about it. Her Tomlinson [off-track figure] was good, and I said, ‘It could open up new doors.”
Lipstick City, a multiple stakes winner on turf, rated behind the pace set by Tiffany Case and stalked by 6-5 favorite Spanish Harlem, who showed the way around the first turn and along the backstretch while setting fractions of 24.61 (seconds) and 49.03 for the first half mile. Spanish Harlem made the first run at the pacesetter on the far turn and took over the lead leaving the turn into the homestretch as Lipstick City loomed dangerously on her outside. Lipstick City, the 7-2 third betting choice ridden by Nik Juarez, skipped over the sloppy track to draw off to a commanding score.
Lipstick City ran 1 1/16 miles in 1:43.75 while scoring her fourth victory in 12 career starts and third stakes success. Spanish Harlem finished second, 1 ¾ lengths ahead of My Cousin Martha and jockey Miguel Vasquez.
She won the Boiling Springs S. last July at Monmouth Park and wintered atHidden Brook Florida Breaking Training. She’s been off the board only once in her 2018 campaign and captured the Christmas Past S. in late May over the Gulfstream Park turf course. Fiesta, winner of the Jellison Memorial and 2-year-old Jayhawk, hero of the White Clay Creek S. are among the other summers stakes winners to graduate from Hidden Brook Florida.
-edited from www.gulfstreampark.com
