O’Brien Award winner L A Delight surfaced on Monday (May 9) at Mohawk Racetrack and recorded the first charted line of her three-year-old campaign for trainer Bob McIntosh and driver Randy Waples.
L A Delight took to the track for Race 4 and lined up in the outside Post 8.
Waples opted for a cautious approach off the wings, as he and the daughter of Bettors Delight were charted sixth, more than seven lengths behind the leader at the :29.1 quarter pole. The duo were on the move in the second quarter of the dash. They were overland and in the lead as they clicked off the opening half-mile in :58.3.
L A Delight continued to do work on the final turn and into the stretch. She spun past the three-quarters of a mile marker in 1:26.4 and was still up on her rivals as she hit the head of the lane.
When all was said and done, L A Delight came home with a :27.4 final quarter and recorded a one and a quarter-length margin of victory in 1:54.3. The mile came over a ‘fast’ track with no variant.
L A Delight was simply a dynamo last season as a two-year-old. She won 11 of her 12 starts and banked over $704,000 in purse earnings. The bay tallied victories in the Eternal Camnation, Shes A Great Lady, Champlain and Ontario Sires Stakes Super Finals, to name a few of her high-profile wins.
L A Delight is a homebred of the Robert McIntosh Stable (of Windsor, Ont.), CSX Stables (Liberty Center, Ohio) and Al McIntosh Holdings (Leamington, Ont.). She took her mark of 1:51.2 last season in the Shes A Great Lady at Mohawk Racetrack, and raced back to that mark in her OSS Super Final win at Woodbine Racetrack.
A trio of three-year-olds that are eligible to the $1 million Pepsi North America Cup were also in action during the eight-race qualifying session. They each participated in Race 6.
The Mark Steacy-trained and Paul MacDonell-driven Nocturnal Bluechip emerged victorious in Race 6. The brown Bettors Delight colt left hard, worked out a pocket trip, and popped the pocket for a one and a half-length win in 1:52.4. The fractions were cut in :28.4, :57 and 1:25, and Nocturnal Bluechip closed his mile with a :27.2 final quarter.
Nocturnal Bluechip is owned by the Landmark 8 Racing Stable (Kingston, Ont.), the NLG Racing Stable (Wallkill, New York) and Jane Phair (Wasaga Beach, Ont.). The colt has been assessed as a 24-1 shot in Trot Magazine’s 2016 Pepsi North America Cup Spring Book.
Fellow ‘Cup’ eligibles Arsenic and New Talent finished second and third, respectively, to Nocturnal Bluechip in the qualifier.
The other victorious horses during the qualifying session were The Land Shark (1:59.2), The Wayfaring Man (1:54.1), Rubber Duck (1:56.2), Myretirementticket (1:59.1), Derecho (1:55.1) and Warrawee Roo (2:00.2).
To view the results from the Monday morning qualifying session at Mohawk, click the following link: Monday Results – Mohawk Racetrack (Qualifying).