Photos by Ernie Belmonte
Every now and then, a girl just needs a weekend at the beach. Just ask Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners’ SISTER OTOOLE, who won the listed CTT and TOC Stakes at Del Mar last evening.
Accompanied by stablemate Spendarella and groom Lisa Conway, Sister OToole hopped on a plane from Maryland Wednesday and flew out to the West Coast to meet our assistant Alice Clapham “where the turf meets the surf.” She faced seven fillies and mares in the $100,000 1 3/8 mile route on the grass, with Umberto Rispoli riding.
Content to settle behind the pack early, she switched gears approaching the half-mile pole and started picking off rivals. Into the turn, the leaders started to pull away, but only briefly. Rispoli swung her three-wide, where she rallied and took the lead late in the stretch. She wasn’t about to relinquish it, and dug in tough to hold off a strong challenge by Scarabea heading to the wire.
This was the first stakes win for the 5-year-old mare. She earned graded stakes placing in her last start, finishing second to Key Biscayne in the Robert G. Dick Memorial Stakes-G3 at Delaware Park on July 9.
Bred in Florida by Helen and Joseph Barbazon, Sister OToole is by multiple graded stakes winner Amira’s Prince (IRE) out of O’Toole, by Distorted Humor. Congratulations to Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners on an exciting win!
Watch the race on the link below: