OAKLAWN: SWING AND SWAY STEALS AMERICAN BEAUTY

Posted On 28 Jan 2018

By Jennifer Hoyt —-

Swing and Sway; All Photos by Coady Photography

HOT SPRINGS, AR (Saturday, Jan. 27, 2018) – Westrock Stables LLC’s Swing and Sway broke the sharpest and never looked back as she sprinted clear to a seven and three-quarter length victory in Saturday’s $125,000 American Beauty Stakes before an estimated on track crowd of 10,000.

Ridden by leading jockey David Cabrera, Swing and Sway took control early and proceeded to set fractions of :22.36 and :46 for the first half mile while staying well clear of her competition. The winner continued to widen her margin of victory through the stretch and cruised home to an easy victory in 1:10.68 for six furlongs over a sloppy track.

Summer House finished second, one length in front of Barbary Hill. Chanteline, the even money favorite, finished fourth and was followed by Okie Diva and Scotty’s Model. Factory of Faith, Sweet Halory and Thoughtless were scratched.

Swing and Sway, a 4-year-old Maclean’s Magic filly trained by Ron Moquett, improved her record to four wins from 13 starts and has now earned $243,040. She returned $24.60, $8.20 and $4.80 at odds of 11-1.

Shortly after Swing and Sway crossed the finish line, the Oaklawn-raced Gun Runner, the newly crowned 2017 Horse of the Year, won the $16 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park. The 2017 Razorback Handicap (G3) winner was making his final career start before retiring to Three Chimneys Farm.

Live racing resumes Sunday with a 1:30 p.m. first post.

Quotes:

Winning Jockey David Cabrera (Swing and Sway) – “I worked this filly one time and I thought this is a really nice filly. I felt like we could get along really good. We saw that. She broke sharp, she liked it on the front end and she finished very well.”

Jockey David Cohen, second (Summer House) – “Everything pretty much set up the way I was hoping it would and the filly really ran her race. The winner obviously ran a beautiful race today on the slop and I was very proud of my filly. She finished up very nice.”