NYRA/Adam Coglianese
Hard to Stay Notgo (More than Ready), an impressive Saratoga debut winner for breeders Chester and Mary Broman and trainer Jimmy Jerkens, returned to the winner’s circle at Aqueduct Racetrack on Sunday afternoon after a frontrunning score in the inaugural $125,000 Franklin Square Stakes for 3-year-old New York-bred fillies.
Drawn in post seven (of nine), Hard to Stay Notgo (6-1 fourth choice) stumbled at the break, but also broke full of run, and once she got her feet back underneath her tugged her way to the front.
After blazing her way through an opening quarter-mile in 23.55 seconds and half in 46.97, the dark bay widened her advantage through the far turn and pulled away the stretch, crossing the finish line a 5 1/2-length winner. Her final time for six furlongs over the fast Aqueduct inner oval was 1:12.30. [VIDEO]
Favorite Golden Gem finished second, followed in third by Graeme Crackers, 3 1/2 lengths back. Completing the order of finish were: Sonora, My Super Nova, Majestic Jessica, Saluda, Enduring Touch and Nonna Jo. Bernstein Flambe was scratched.
Angel Arroyo, aboard Hard to Stay Notgo for the first time for the filly’s fourth career start, said, “I had talked to the assistant trainer [Steve Moyer] before, and he just told me to get out in front and keep going and that’s just what the horse did. He was perfect.”
Hard to Stay Notgo earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 75 for her good-looking open-length debut victory on August 6 at Saratoga, but her follow-up performances in two other juvenile outings were not as sharp as the debut promised: a second in the Seeking the Ante as the odds-on favorite and a well-beaten third in the muddy Joseph A Gimma, both awarded Beyers in the low fifties.
Jerkens’ assistant Steve Moyer commented, “[Hard to Stay Notgo]’s hit or miss, and she’s a little problematic to train, but she’s a vintage inner-track type filly. She’s naturally very fast; that’s all she wants to do.
Continued Moyer, “We liked her when she broke her maiden at Saratoga, and we loved her when she ran back in the [Seeking the Ante]. She trained really, really good coming into this race; the problem was there was never a New York-bred [allowance race] in the book. She couldn’t have been any better in the receiving barn and the paddock today, and before she wasn’t like that. We’re thrilled with her performance.”
The Franklin Square improved Hard to Stay Notgo’s record to two wins, one second and one third from four starts with and increased her purse earnings to $173,800.
Hard to Stay Notgo is out of Whichwaydidshego (Storm Cat), purchased by Chester Broman for $425,000 at the 2009 Keeneland November sale. The mare is a winning half-sister to the multiple Grade 2 winner Fed Biz and issues from the family of Minardi, Tale of the Cat and Johannesburg.
Whichwaydidshego has produced three winners, including multiple stakes-winning Broman homebred Mark My Way. She has a yearling colt by Bernardini and was bred back to the same stallion last year.
