Richard Dutrow Jr. sent out two of the six runners in Monday’s $75,000 Jimmy Winkfield Stakes for 3-year-olds at Aqueduct. The uncoupled entry of King and Crusader and Reserved Quality finished first and second respectively in the Martin Luther King Jr. day feature.
King and Crusader was away in good order, made the lead coming into the stretch and held off his stablemate by three-quarters of a length under a brisk hand ride by jockey Cornelio Velasquez. The son of Lion Heart completed the six furlongs over the inner dirt track in 1:11.72
“The No. 1 horse [Yo Koffy] and the No. 3 horse [Deliburnsky] wanted to go to the front, and my horse stayed third easy,” said Velasquez. “At the five-sixteenths, I thought I had a lot of horse and he passed them into the lead when I asked him. The other Dutrow horse was coming, but I had a lot of horse. He tried hard. For three days rest, he won easily. I like him. He’s a nice horse.”
The victory was ultra impressive since King and Crusader had just ran three days ago and won an optional claiming event by 2 lengths at Aqueduct. Reserve Quality also came out of the same race for Dutrow.
King and Crusader, a $26,000 OBS April 2-year-old purchase, paid $9.90, $4.60 and $3.40. Reserved Quality returned $6.70 and $3.80 while Deliburnsky finished third and paid $2.80 to show.
Photo by Coglianese
