Hold The Sale digs in to defeat It’s Gravy in Sunday’s $250,000 Great White Way division of the New York Stallion Series at Aqueduct. Susie Raisher/NYRA Photo.
By Melissa Bauer-Herzog
Those who love hunch bets based on food scored big at Aqueduct Sunday afternoon when Hold Me Back’s son Hold The Salsa just edged out It’s Gravy in the final strides of the Great White Way division of the New York Stallion Series.
Hold The Salsa has won half of his six career starts and he’s made those wins count with the Great White Way his second stakes win in his last three starts. Making another trip to New York from his breeder, owner and trainer Richard Lugovich’s base at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland, Hold The Salsa was looking to bounce back from a loss in the Sleepy Hollow Stakes. He finished fourth in the Sleepy Hollow behind a trio that included future Grade 2 Remsen winner Brooklyn Strong and Notebook Stakes winner Eagle Orb.
The Great White Way went much differently than that race for Hold The Salsa, who made a huge move coming into the turn of the 7-furlong restricted stakes. In less than a furlong, the 2-year-old switched from being a mid-pack runner to just behind leaders by the top of the Aqueduct stretch.
Hold The Salsa finally got his hard-fought lead in the final sixteenth but had to dig even deeper with It’s Gravy making a late charge. The wire came just in time for Hold The Salsa, who held off It’s Gravy by a neck to give those hunch bettors a $56.50 exacta with Market Alert running third.
“When he’s good, he takes me there,” said jockey Junior Alvarado. “By the five-sixteenths, I was very happy with where he was and the way he was traveling. I knew he was going to have a little something left at the end. He showed up today.”
Lugovich is extremely familiar with Hold The Salsa’s family with the colt being a third generation Lugovich-bred. He said the future may see Hold The Salsa trying new things, noting his pedigree calls for a different division of racing.
“It’s interesting because if you look at his breeding, he’s probably a mile-and-a-quarter horse on the grass,” he said. “He’s only a 2-year-old, so he could see that eventually. I’ll see what we can do with him next year and see how he comes up. I’m in no rush with him.”
The owner-breeder-trainer purchased Hold The Salsa’s third dam Northern Nymph for $2,700 at the 1997 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic December mixed sale in foal to Four Seasons, with that foal becoming Hold The Salsa’s second dam Northern Sprite. That mare saw a page upgrade before she even hit the track when her half-brother Jestakick placed in multiple stakes to give Northern Nymph a stakes horse.
After time at the track that saw her make one start, Northern Sprite went on to join her dam in the broodmare band at Northway Farm and foaled Northern Mambo in 2009. While that mare never raced, Northern Mambo followed in her dam and granddam’s footsteps by foaling Hold The Salsa at the same farm.
“We’re just over the Saratoga line, close to Joe McMahon’s. He’s a good friend of mine,” Lugovich said earlier this year. “We’ve had some good horses come off the farm. Copper Chalice (a maiden winner June 5 at Belmont), that’s my son’s horse. Mambonick, he finished fourth going a mile on the grass (Sept. 26 at Belmont). They were all born there.”
The Great White Way provided multiple updates for Northern Mambo’s yearling filly by Freud – the sire of second placed It’s Gravy. Northern Mambo didn’t have a foal this year and was bred to Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Karakontie for a 2021 foal.
