It was a first stakes victory for Smokin’ T on Saturday when the WAR FRONT 4-year-old bolted up in the Listed Lure Stakes.
Smokin’ T let the front runners control the pace as he sat just over three lengths back in the 1 1/16 mile turf race with the rest of the field much farther behind. Allowed to settle by jockey John Velazquez, it wasn’t until they neared the far turn that the Shug McGaughey was asked to enter the fray. Sent wide, Smokin’ T bobbled for a moment before regaining his stride and found himself between runners as they entered the stretch.
It was a three-way battle from there but Smokin’ T steadily started pulling away to have a neck on Dakota Gold in the end with another rival a nose back in third.
“He shows up, I’ll say that for him,” McGaughey said. “He’s had four starts this year and he ran a really good race in the allowance at Churchill. Then he ran against that horse of Christophe Clement’s [Big Everest] in the [Cliff Hanger] at Monmouth and he just couldn’t catch him. Today was good.”
A homebred for Dattt Farm, Smokin’ T crossed the $300,000 mark with the win and earned his first blacktype success after finishing on the board in multiple stakes the last two years.
Smokin’ T is the first stakes winner out of the multiple graded stakes winner and Grade 1 placed Wine Princess, who has four winners from five to race. That mare is out of the Hall of Famer and Horse of the year Azeri. In all, Azeri produced four stakes performers as a broodmare.
WAR FRONT’s 113 stakes winners is fifth best among all active North American sires with over 300 fewer runners than those ahead of him.