This weekend’s Illinois stakes action at Balmoral Park continued on Sunday, April 26 with a field of seven diagonally-gaited sophomore fillies squaring off in the $8,000 Koochie Stakes.

After a nice tune-up in a conditioned event in her seasonal debut, Cynthia Demarlie and Jason Van Winkle’s Bi Polar Rose was ready and raring to go for this event as she grabbed command from the start and never looked back en route to a four-length victory in 1:59 for driver Travis Seekman.

Taking advantage of post position two, Seekman hustled the daughter of Polar Winner—I Still Owe away from the gate and the filly was comfortably in front by two-lengths as she rolled by an opening quarter in :30.

Allowed to have things her own way on the “engine,” the Ronnie Roberts-trained miss proceeded to effortlessly click off middle splits of 1:00.2 and 1:30.1 while gaining confidence with each passing station.

Through the lane, last year’s Lady Lincoln Land Stakes winner was straight and strong, trotting home in :28.4 while under mild urging at best from Seekman. Divinely Floozy (Tim Curtin), the winner of this year’s Speedy Rodney Stakes, sat in the pocket throughout but could not muster up enough to challenge the eventual winner while Meabh (Mike Oosting), who spotted the field some 16 lengths at the opening call after making a break behind the gate, rallied nicely to finish third.

A model of consistency in her first season of racing, Bi Polar Rose now sports a 4-2-3 record in 12 career starts with earnings of just over $70,000 for her proud connections. The third choice in a fairly wide open betting race, Bi Polar Rose returned $7.60, $4.20 and $2.80 to her backers.

(Balmoral Park)