WAR FRONT’s evergreen runner Sumter was back to his winning ways on Saturday with a victory in the Lure Stakes at Santa Anita for owner-breeders Perry and Ramona Bass.
Sumter was happy to settle into third with Mike Smith aboard in the one-mile turf race when another horse opened a few lengths on the field. As they progressed down the backstretch, Sumter steadily made up ground on that runner to be in prime striking position going into the turn.
At the quarter pole, the WAR FRONT 5-year-old poked his nose in front and by the stretch had the longtime leader in the rearview mirror. Sumter opened a few lengths in the stretch but had to hold off a late runner with the line seeing Sumter still in front by a neck as he flashed under it.
“We were blessed to have a really good trip,” said Smith. “Mr. Mandella really liked him today. He said he was doing really good. He actually put it in my head and said, ‘Listen somewhere down the backside going into the far turn, go ahead and don’t wait on him, give it to him and see what he does, because if you wait on him he hasn’t been finishing like we believe he could.’ So I did it and it worked. I have to give him the credit.”
Trained by Richard Mandella, Sumter has finished in the top three in 13 of 23 starts with eight of those coming in stakes.
Sumter is one of two stakes winners out of the stakes wining A Little Bit Sassy alongside WAR FRONT daughter Pizzazz. Their granddam is the multiple stakes winner Miss A. Bomb, who produced two stakes performers of her own.
This is also the family of Grade 1 winners Red Bullet and Silent Poet among others.
Sumter is one of eight stakes winners and 17 stakes performers for WAR FRONT this year with the group including Grade 1 winner Full Count Felicia.