Nineteenth Street was the wire-to-wire winner in the 2nd race at Churchill Downs on Friday afternoon.
She broke sharply from the gate and quickly found herself on the lead along with Let It Ride Mom and Gris Gris. Gabriel Saez told us after the race that he tried to hold her up to keep her out of the lead, but the other fillies just didn’t want to take the lead over. After the first quarter in 0:23.14 he felt like he just needed to let her go a bit. She got out in front by about a length and he got her to settle on that lead and she maintained a very comfortable pace covering a half in a very reasonable 0:46.56. When the other fillies finally did try to come after her, she had plenty left in the tank and pulled away to an easy 1 3/4 win. She covered the 6.5 furlongs in 1:16.7. All in all, it was a great ride by Saez and it was very good to see her settle down on the lead and not try to run away with it too early like she might have done earlier in her career.
Going off at 4/1, she paid $9.80, $3,20 and $2.60.
Nineteenth Street improves her record to 3-1-0 with earnings of $86,260 from six starts.
