Arodasi, handled by Joe Pavia Jr., scored a 'three-peat' win at Pompano Park on Sunday night in the $10,000 Fillies & Mares Open Handicap, hitting the wire a scant neck ahead of a stubborn Angels Delight (Jason Dillander) in 1:52.3.
Express Jet, prominent early on before being shuffled to near the back of the pack turning for home, was flying late to finish third, just a half length away. De Vins Girl finished fourth while Oceans Motion, who brushed up from third half way through the mile to take a short lead around the final turn, finished fifth in the quintette.
The winner, a daughter of Western Terror, was away last in her field and under very tight restraint as Express Jet and Angels Delight duelled through an opener of :27.4. Around turn two, Arodasi was out and going and about five and a half lengths off the lead with the half-mile timed in :56.4.
With Oceans Motion on the engine from third, Arodasi swept up three deep around the final turn, and turning for home, there were three across the track with Arodasi widest of all and now in a war with Angels Delight, which lasted right to the wire.
Arodasi paid $3 as the heavy public choice.
"She wasn't quite herself tonight," said Pavia Jr. in a post-race interview. "She was hotter than normal and I had a very tight hold on her until just short of the half. Her gameness was what got her through tonight, plain and simple. She didn't win like a 1-2 shot should...but she won."
Owned in part by the Joe Pavia Jr. Stable along with the AGC Stable, Joseph Barbera and Peter Shank, Arodasi kept her perfect record in tact for 2014 (three-for-three) and sent her lifetime bounty to $185,311.
(With files from Pompano Park)