Howling Pigeon Farms, Gary Barber, Wachtel Stable and Madaket Stables’ Needs Supervision, who began her season with a stakes victory in January, closed her 2019 campaign with a dominant 3 1/4-length triumph in the $100,000 Imagining Safely Kept Stakes.
The sophomore filly by Paynter is among the over 50 winners and 12 blacktype horses in 2019 who’ve emerged from the Hidden Brook Florida Training Center.
Contested at seven furlongs, the Safely Kept for 3-year-old fillies was the last of four stakes worth $400,000 in purses on the program and served as a ‘Win and In’ qualifier for the $300,000 La Brea (G1) Dec. 26 at Santa Anita, with an additional $2,500 stipend toward travel costs.
Ridden by Feargal Lynch for trainer Jeremiah O’Dwyer, Needs Supervision ($6) hit the wire in 1:23.51. Parx shipper Hey Mamaluke was second, followed by long shots Victim of Love (23-1) third and Passionof the Nile (25-1) fourth, separated by three-quarters of a length.
Lynch and Needs Supervision found themselves in fifth early on as Philanthropic took the field of 11 through a quarter-mile in 22.57 seconds and a half in 45.58, pressed to her outside by Victim of Love. Needs Supervision found her way through to the lead after going six furlongs in 1:10.80 and left her rivals behind with a powerful stretch run.
“She’s not a great breaker,” Lynch said. “She just breaks little bit slow every time. She just wants to get on with it and she gets a little bit anxious, but she’s got a great kick.”
Needs Supervision broke her maiden in her second start last November at Laurel, then traveled to Kentucky to beat winners in an optional claimer to cap her juvenile campaign. She won the Silverbulletday Stakes Jan. 19 and was fifth in the Rachel Alexandra (G2) before going to the sidelines, returning to run second in the six-furlong Weathervane Stakes Sept. 21 at Laurel. Last out, the sophomore daughter of Paynter was seventh in the seven-furlong Raven Run (G2) Oct. 19 at Keeneland.
“She’s just taken us on a hell of a ride from the day we got her – breaking her maiden, and winning her allowance and having the new owners come on board,” O’Dwyer said. “It’s been a big help to my career, this filly has. We’ve got great owners, great staff and a much nicer quality of horses in the barn now.”
The Safely Kept pays homage to the late Maryland-bred mare that won 24 of 31 career starts and nearly $2.2 million in purse earnings, earned the 1989 Eclipse Award as champion sprinter and was elected to National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in 2011. Twenty-two of her wins came in stakes, 12 in graded-stakes, led by the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) and 1989 Test (G1).
– edited from www.laurelpark.com
