Percy Blue Chip Upsets In The Sophomore Filly Pace Crown Final
52-1 Percy Blue Chip (Matt Kakaley) took advantage of a speed duel and was the winner of the $500,000 Breeders Crown for three-year-old filly pacers on Saturday at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono. It was a new lifetime mark of 1:51.2 over a sloppy track.
Percy Blue Chip is trained by Ron Burke for owners Burke Racing, Weaver Bruscemi, Dandy Farm, Silva, Purnel and Libby.
Youaremycandygirl (Yannick Gingras) was first to the lead at the :25.4 first quarter and was soon joined by Kissin In The Sand (Scott Zeron) on the outside, who applied pressure to the :53.3 half and the 1:22.2 three-quarters.
As the field turned for home, those two were still on the lead, but were overtaken by Percy Blue Chip, who'd been second-over throughout most of the race and went three-wide to win by three-quarters of a length.
The daughter of Shadow Play paid $106.00, $22.80 and $11.00 for the win. Kissin In The Sand was second and Dance Blue was third.
It was the first Breeders Crown win for Matt Kakaley, who dropped his whip at the top of the stretch, but clearly didn't need it.
"It’s amazing," he said. "Absolutely amazing. You know the only way I could win was if they duked it out on the lead, like that. I actually dropped my whip at the head of the stretch. I just put my nose on Scotty’s (Zeron) helmet. She came home good. Down the backside I thought I had a good shot."
