Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. has never been one to hide his emotions.
So, when the perennial Gulfstream Park training champ sent out Skippylongstocking and White Abarrio to finish 1-2 in the $2,903,800 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes (G1) at the Hallandale Beach track, hearing his voice crack with emotion after the race was not surprising.
In winning the Jan. 24 stakes, Daniel Alonso's Skippylongstocking, who has been with Joseph since he was 2 through his current 7-year-old campaign, finally registered his first grade 1 win after previously starting 35 times and earning $3.7 million.
He also emerged from the shadow of the other 7-year-old in Joseph's barn, White Abarrio, who won last year's Pegasus after taking the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1), Whitney Stakes (G1), and Florida Derby (G1) in previous years. The odds said it all about that pecking order with White Abarrio 3-1 on the toteboard and Skippylongstocking 21-1 ($45.20).
"He deserved it," Joseph said about the son of Exaggerator who was making a fourth-straight start in the Pegasus after finishing third last year and prevailed by 1 3/4 lengths. "Skippy has run fast enough to win a grade 1 but he never had. And people are going to knock you if you don't have a grade 1 win. Now he has one."
Joseph said a trip to the $12 million Dubai World Cup (G1) could be in play for Skippylongstocking, and, with the Pegasus designated as a "Win and You're In" Breeders' Cup Challenge race for the first time, he also earned a free spot in the BC Classic.
"It just means everything," Alonso said. "He's an amazing horse. This has been an amazing ride for all of us. He's taken us to some of the best races in the world."
Yet for all of the drama wrapped into Skippylongstocking's win, what overwhelmed Joseph with emotion was the performance of C2 Racing Stable, Gary Barber, and La Milagrosa Stable's White Abarrio. Joseph has been through an emotional wringer with the multiple grade 1 winner since Nov. 1 when the son of Race Day was a gate scratch at the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1), a veterinarian decision that angered the connections.
"In the stretch, I was rooting for White Abarrio to win," Joseph said. "I feel bad saying it, but I am telling you the truth. It would have been the greatest feeling in the world if 'Skippy' was in the race alone. (White Abarrio) was better for the Breeders' Cup than he was today. After that we were searching, searching for something with him, and there was nothing there. We changed some shoes on him around Thanksgiving and then he had the biggest set back and we could not run in the (Dec. 27) Mr. Prospector (Stakes, G3).
"For the last couple of months, I've been in a different world. You don't want to be in that position, but you rely on your faith because it makes you stronger. I'm just grateful and thankful about the way he ran."
Joseph said he was relieved with White Abarrio's performance but brushed off the notion that he was vindicated.
"Vindicated makes it sound like I have an ego," he said as tears welled in his eyes. "I don't want to use that word. I just want to go forward and hopefully we can make positive changes out of it, that you can't scratch a horse for any reason. There has to be some discussion, because look at the situation I've been in with him the last couple of months. It's not easy.
"It's not a good way to train a horse because you're looking at him and it's supposed to be blue and you're seeing purple. That's not how you train horses. You train horses on instinct and observation, and you have to have confidence training a horse, and I didn't have confidence training him. I'm just grateful. My faith got me through."
Gulfstream is typically kind to early speed around two turns but Skippylongstocking rallied from ninth in the field of 12.
Disco Time, the 3-2 favorite in the 10th edition of the Pegasus, set the early fractions of :22.25, :46.08, and 1:09.87, but midway on the final turn White Abarrio and Irad Ortiz Jr. forged to the front and drew away. In the stretch, perhaps the lack of a race since Aug. 31 caught up with him. He led at the eighth pole by 1 ½ lengths with his stablemate mounting the only serious charge.
Tyler Gaffalione moved Skippylongstocking to the front leaving the sixteenth pole and covered the mile-and-an-eighth in 1:48.49.
"Everything went to plan," Gaffalione said.
Hronis Racing's Full Serrano was 5 ½ lengths back in third.
Juddmonte's Disco Time wound up eighth, suffering his first loss in six career starts.
"Down the backstretch he relaxed well, but then they came at me going into the turn and he just wasn't going anywhere at that point," jockey Flavien Prat said.
Skippylongstocking was bred by Brushy Hill in Kentucky out of the War Chant mare Twinkling. He was bought for $37,000 from the Top Line Sales consignment at the OBS Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training and has now earned $5,461,250.
Pegasus wagering record set
The awful winter weather that led to a cancellation of racing in New York provided a boost to the Pegasus Day handle.
A Pegasus record $48,558,149 was wagered on the 13-race card, a big jump from last year's $41,700,225.
It was the largest non-Breeders' Cup handle ever at Gulfstream Park.
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