WAR FRONT son Sumter won his second straight stakes race on Saturday when he gritted out a win in the Singletary Stakes.
The one mile turf race saw Sumter break among the top of the field and immediately jump to the lead with another horse putting some early pressure on him. He shook that one off and coasted to open up a little over a length on the field until Durante tried to apply some pressure with three furlongs to run.
By the time they hit the quarter pole, Sumter had pulled well ahead of Durante once more and looked like he was free from a challenge until the final furlong. That’s when two others came after the leader but the 3-year-old dug deep to keep his nose in front at the line for his third career win in six starts.
The earner of $189,600, WAR FRONT’s son is a homebred runner for Perry and Ramona Bass and trained by Richard Mandella to finish in the top two in five of six starts.
“He’s a quick horse, there’s no question about that,” said Mandella. “It looked like nobody really knew who was going to go or not and when they got around the turn, Mike just decided to go. Very happy with the way he did it and we’ll probably look at [the American Turf (G2) on Kentucky Derby day.]”
Sumter is one of two WAR FRONT stakes winners out of the stakes winning A Little Bit Sassy alongside stakes winner Pizzazz. They come from the family of Grade 1 Preakness Stakes winner Red Bullet and Grade 1 Highlander Stakes winner Silent Poet among others.
Sumter is one of six stakes performers and two stakes winners worldwide for WAR FRONT this year with three of those stakes performer placing in graded stakes. He was also one of two 3-year-old winners for his sire on Saturday with WAR FRONT’s regally-bred Simply Glorious getting her second career victory in Ireland.