Illinois conceived and foaled distaffers took center stage on Friday night at Maywood Park as a full field lined up for the inaugural edition of the $40,000 BetZotic Stake
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Carded as a way to help bring attention to the upcoming launch of Maywood & Balmoral’s new ADW platform form, BetZotic.com, this test produced one of the most impressive performances in recent history at Maywood Park as Kay Willis & Richard Beere’s Native Hotspur cruised to a wire-to-wire victory in a track record time of 1:52.2.
Hustled away from post position six by the red-hot Mike Oosting (six wins on the night) the daughter of Ft Apache Hanover was parked through a tough opening quarter of :26.3.
“I really had two horses that worried me in here and one was inside of us (#3) and one was outside of me (#7) so I really didn’t have a set strategy in my mind going into the race,” said Oosting. “I kind of thought that I’d probably have to take back in the early going but once Rev Me Up (Ridge Warren #7) showed that she was leaving I knew I had to stay in front of her so I sent my mare to the front.”
Reeling off middle splits of :55.2 and 1:23.4, the Nelson Willis-trained miss continued to show the way as Rev Me Up tried to advance while first over.
“This mare just loves to race and she loves it when she feels pressure from other horses in the race,” commented Oosting. “I knew the fractions we were going were pretty brisk and that is was going to be awfully tough for a horse that was first up for that long to beat us.”
After dispatching of Rev Me Up midway around the final turn Native Hotspur still had plenty left in reserve as she kept the pocket sitting Odds On Dominica at bay in route to her fifth victory of the season. Odds On Dominica finished two lengths back in second while Rev Me Up was forced to settle for a third place finish. The final time of 1:52.2 shaved one-fifth of a second off the previous record of 1:53.3 for an aged pacing mare which had been held by four other distaffers.
After running her career bankroll up to $446,504 Oosting continued to marvel at the body of work by Native Hotspur and her veteran trainer.
“Nelson wasn’t even here tonight and he never even called me to tell me how he wanted her raced,” explained Oosting. “He’s done such a great job of keeping her ready and she always seems to race best when she’s had a week off between starts like she did tonight. He’s got a ton of confidence in this mare and justifiably so as you saw by the performance she turned in tonight.”
Sent off as the overwhelming 2-5 choice of the betting public, Native Hotspur returned $2.80 for the win while posting her 16th win in the past two seasons.
(Maywood Park)