Sultry sails to Spendthrift Juvenile Filly S. victory

Sultry snuck through a gap on the inside and the top of the stretch en route to a 1 1/4-length in Sunday’s $200,000 Spendthrift Juvenile Filly S. at Churchill Downs (VIDEO).

Restricted to 2-year-old fillies by current or previous Spendthrift stallions, Sultry is by leading sire Malibu Moon, who has 13 stakes winners accounting for 21 stakes wins in 2017.

Sultry, who came from well off the pace in her two prior wins, found herself near the back of the field once again on Sunday. Mia Mischief, by Into Mischief set all the pace, while Sultry was about 10 lengths from the front until she commenced her run midway on the turn.

Slipping through along the fence at the head of the lane, Sultry began to cut into Mia Mischief’s lead, taking over in the final sixteenth to stop the timer in 1:24.51 for the seven furlongs.

“Her running style is to come from behind so even though speed has been holding today we didn’t want to change too much except get her into the race earlier,” winning rider Corey Lanerie said. “We had a perfect trip up the rail and with the early fractions the field came back to us a bit which helped. Eddie (trainer Eddie Kenneally) and his team have done a phenomenal job training her and she was ready to run today.”

Kentucky-bred Sultry, out of the Giant’s Causeway mare Viva Carina (ARG), banked $60,140 for her owner, with another $40,000 to breeder Three Chimneys Farm LLC. Sultry now has a career record of 5-3-0-0 and earnings of $126,606.