LEA’s Media Luna added another stakes victory to her record on Sunday with a win in the Clasico Vuelve Candy B S. (PR-G3), her fourth graded stakes victory.
Media Luna raced prominently for much of the 1 1/16 mile race, trading second and third with another runner just behind the leader. Around the turn, she showed why she went off as the race favorite when making her move to take command of the race. It didn’t take long, with Media Luna getting her nose in front and pulling away in the stretch.
A late closing Lovely Dana closed Media Luna’s lead down to 1 ¾ lengths at the line but didn’t have enough time to seriously challenge in the end. The victory was the third straight for the LEA daughter, who has consistently outclassed her competition with 15 wins in 22 starts.
The earner of $223,583, Media Luna is trained by Raymond Morales for Establo Ma-D-Co. She was bred in Kentucky by Hinkle Farms out of Moon Dreamer, a winning Malibu Moon half-sister to Grade 3 winner Liam’s Dream.
Moon Dreamer is far from the only stakes producer in the family with Liam’s Dream also producing a Grade 2 placed runner and the dam of another stakes performer. In all, five of Moon Dreamer’s sisters produced stakes performers.
Media Luna’s third dam is the successful Grade 2 winner Danzig’s Beauty, who produced champion sire Distorted Humor among her six winners.
Media Luna is one of 11 stakes winners and 18 stakes performers for LEA, who leads his sire class by percentage of winners to named foals with 73.63% visiting the winner’s circle.