BY BROCK SHERIDAN

It took Spring Dancer seven tries to win her first race but the Florida-bred filly has now won two of her last three including a 24-1 upset of a $115,000 allowance race for 11 fillies and mares, 4-years-old and older, at Oaklawn Park Friday afternoon.

Trained and co-owned by Randy Morse with Randy Patterson, Joe Morgan and Sam M. Vogel, Spring Dancer led Miss Elle by a head through a quarter mile in :22.22 before extending her advantage to two lengths around the turn with a :46.11 half mile. Jockey Jaime Torres kept Spring Dancer to the task in the stretch as she cruised under the wire three lengths in front of Miss Elle in second with Gin’s Beach Road another three-and-a-quarter lengths back in third.

Spring Dancer paid $51.80 on a $2 win ticket and completed six furlongs in 1:10.70 on the fast track.

Second three times and third once in the maiden special weight ranks for fillies on the main tracks at Churchill Downs and Oaklawn, Spring Dancer broke through for her first win while sprinting five furlongs on the grass at Churchill on Nov. 13. She finished last year with a seventh-place finish in a first level allowance going six furlongs at Oaklawn on Dec. 14, before starting 2026 with Friday’s victory. 

Spring Dancer earned $69,000, pushing her lifetime revenues to $180,310 from two wins, three seconds and a third in nine starts.

Bred in Florida by Erich Brehm and Chuck Hovitz, Spring Dancer is by The Big Beast out of Spring Included, by Include. She was a $35,000 purchase by Champion Equine out of the Abbie Road Farm consignment at the 2023 Ocala Breeders’ Sales October Yearling Sale and Patterson bought her for $200,000 the next year out of Tom McCrocklin’s consignment at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale of 2-year-olds in training.

Return to the January 3 issue of Wire to Wire