BY BROCK SHERIDAN

Florida-bred Roll On Big Joe won his second consecutive stakes and fourth added-money test of the year with an easy victory in the $150,000 Ring The Bell at Oaklawn Park Saturday. With Julien Leparoux in the irons, the 5-year-old gelded son of Prospective bested six other 3-year-olds and older going six furlongs to improve his record this year to six wins in nine starts.

Roll On Big Joe was second in the run down the backstretch, just off front-running longshot Second I D, before taking Leparoux to the front approaching the half-mile pole. After a :22.66 quarter-mile split, Spankster and Banishing tried to pressure Roll On Big Joe around the turn but he comfortably began to kick way turning for home. Under mild encouragement from Leparoux, Roll On Big Joe sprinted clear in the stretch and galloped under the wire a length-and-a-quarter in front of Banishing in second with Tejano Twist another length and three-quarters farther back in third. They were followed by Second I D, Skelly, Durante and Spankster. Ghost of Midnight was scratched.

Roll On Big Joe stopped the clock in 1:09.66 and paid $6.40 to win.

Trained by Bob Hess Jr., Roll On Big Joe won the $269,000 Bet On Sunshine (Listed) at Churchill Downs on Nov. 1 in his last start, adding to victories earlier this year in the Grade 3 Palos Verdes at Santa Anita in February and the Grade 3 Kelly’s Landing at Churchill Downs in June. He improved his career record to nine wins in 22 races with six seconds and a third. The $85,500 first-place check for owners Rancho Temescal, Rancho Temescal Thoroughbred Partners, White Fence LLC and Richard Hale Jr.  boosted his lifetime bankroll to $751,925.

Rancho Temescal purchased Roll On Big Joe for $90,000 out of the 2022 Ocala Breeders’ Sales June Sale of 2-year-olds in training and horses of racing age where he was consigned by Gayle Woods.

Roll On Big Joe is out of Nina’s Gift, by Victory Gallop and was bred in Florida by Max Ubide, who trained the winning mare for Nina Ubide. Nina’s Gift has six foals, with five winners from as many starters.

Roll On Big Joe’s victory in the Ring the Bell brings the total number of open stakes wins by Florida-breds this year to 80.

He was the second Florida-bred winner on the Oaklawn Park card Saturday after Greentree Stables and Three Player’s Stable’s Winter’s Ghost won a $10,000 claiming in Race 4.

Return to the December 13 issue of Wire to Wire