Lead Guitar wins fourth straight – and second stakes in a row – in Sunday’s Autumn Days at Aqueduct. NYRA Photo.
By Melissa Bauer-Herzog
New York-bred Lead Guitar won her fifth race of the year and fourth in a row Sunday with a victory over open company in the $100,000 Autumn Days Stakes at Aqueduct.
Racing second for much of the 6-furlong turf stakes as the 7-5 favorite, the 4-year-old Maclean’s Music filly was always within a length of the leader. Showing why she has put such a strong 2020 record together, Lead Guitar dominated in the stretch and had an easy run to the line with a 3 ¼-length score over A Great Time. Fellow New York-bred Risky Mischief finished a head back in third. Lead Guitar won in 1:10.87 over the course labeled good.
Trained by George Waver for Jim and Susan Hill, Lead Guitar won her second straight stakes after a win in Belmont Park’s Floral Park Oct. 17. She’s won at four tracks this year and improved to 6-for-11 with two seconds and a third for $290,678 in earnings.
“She’s a good girl,” said Weaver’s assistant, Blair Golen. “She’s just a nice filly to train and be around. She’s proven that she doesn’t have to have everything go her way. I just told Jose [Lezcano], ‘I’m glad you’re on the outside, you know what to do,’ and he just did his thing. She’s just a great horse and very consistent. She’s easy to train and easy to be around. She’s not too tough on herself.”
Breaking her maiden in her third start in August 2019 by an impressive 6 ¼ lengths under Weaver’s tutelage, the filly then traveled to Kentucky where she ended her season with a close second in a Keeneland allowance.
The Hills opted to keep Lead Guitar in Kentucky to start the year and she kicked off her 2020 campaign with a victory at Churchill Downs for trainer Eddie Kenneally. She found a lull in her form after that victory until returning to her home state with Kenneally and starting her win streak in an Aug. 20 allowance-optional at Saratoga Race Course.
She moved back to the Weaver barn from there and has won her three races since by a combined 7 ¼ lengths.
The Windylea Farm-bred Lead Guitar was foaled at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds in Saratoga Springs before going through the sales ring in Saratoga multiple times over the next few years.
Lead Guitar brought $35,000 from Sally Thomas, agent, as a weanling from the McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds consignment at the 2016 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga fall mixed sale. She made headlines the following year when she was the sixth most expensive filly at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-bred yearling as a $200,000 purchase by the current owners.
Lead Guitar is out of stakes-placed Eleadora, a half-sister to three other stakes placed runners. That mare also has a New York-bred 3-year-old by Forty Tales named Chazy, a 2-year-old New York-bred filly by Central Banker named Mypharm, a yearling New York-bred full sister to Lead Guitar, and she was bred to Mo Town for a 2021 foal.
