Crittenden rallied at just the right moment to take the first running of the $75,000-added PDJF Stakes Saturday, May 30 at Indiana Grand, giving the 3-year-old son of Distorted Humor his first stakes win and third win in seven lifetime starts.
The sire of more than 130 lifetime stakes winners, perennial top-10 sire Distorted Humor is once again in that spot in 2015, with more than $3.3 million in progeny earnings and double-digit stakes horses this year.
Thirtysilverpieces led through a majority of the race, with Fancy Man and Serious Talk in close pursuit. The top trio began to tire around the turn, with Oak Brook inheriting the lead coming into the stretch. Fernando De La Cruz had Crittenden ready to pounce, and steadily cut into the margin to get past Oak Brook in the final stride, winning by a neck in 1:30 flat for the 7 1/2-furlongs on the firm turf.
“I stayed on the rail and waited in the stretch until I got clear and he (Crittenden) took off,” said De La Cruz, who was the 2014 leading rider at Indiana Grand. “The condition of the turf was pretty good even after all the rain we got.”
Crittenden earned his first win in his third start of 2015. The Godolphin Racing Stable homebred is out of the multiple stakes-placed Pulpit mare Calla Lily, who is a half-sister to Arlington Million (G1) winner Hardest Core.
