With big money on the line, Speightstown’s Force the Pass came through win the tightest of photos in the $500,000 Penn Mile Saturday night at Penn National. Never worse than second in five starts, Saturday’s win was the second stakes, and first graded, for the 3-year-old colt.
Speightstown entered Saturday ranked sixth on the 2015 General Sire List with $3.5 million in progeny earnings. His nine stakes winners include graded victors Reynaldothewizard, Tamarkuz and Barbados.
It took a long look from the placing judges to discern the outcome after seven horses separated by a length and a half at the wire. Force the Pass, who was in the back half of the 11 horse field early on, still had nowhere to go with a furlong to run. Joel Rosario finally found a seam and rocketed from eighth to first in final furlong.
The official margin was a head, but looked much closer during live action. The final time was a very good 1:34.03, just .70 seconds off the track record.
“Follow the nine horse (My Point Exactly), he stop, he going, and I’m like ‘OK’,” Rosario said of the adventurous trip. “Every time I tried to make a move, there was always somebody in the way, but he got the job done. Very nice horse.”
Competing exclusively on the turf, the Richard Santulli homebred annexed the $60,000 Cutler Bay S. at Gulfstream Park on April 1 and is now 3-2-0 in five outings. She is the second foal out of Social Queen, who racked up $344,164 and won the Gallorette S.
(G3) and Eatontown S. (G3). Force the Pass hails from the same family as $4.7 million earner Perfect Drift.
Force the Pass earned $272,000 with the win and boosted his earnings to $360,084.
