Pepper wears San Francisco Mile crown

Pepper Crown found an opening at the right time to defeat favorite Summer Hit (William G. Vassar/Vassar Photography) Pepper Crown saved ground to the stretch and then slipped up the inside of 6-5 favorite Summer Hit in the final sixteenth to register a 46-1 shocker in the Grade 3, $100,315 San Francisco Mile at Golden Gate Fields on Saturday. A four-year-old colt bred, owned and trained by Alex Paszkeicz, Pepper Crown rated in fourth behind Summer Hit, who set fractions of :23 2/5, :47 3/5 and 1:11 4/5 over the yielding turf. When the favorite drifted left inside the final furlong, jockey Abel Cedillo sent the previously bottled-up longshot through the gap and on to victory by three quarters of a length. Pepper Crown completed the distance in 1:36 4/5 and paid $94.20.

Summer Hit, runner-up by a neck in the 2013 San Francisco Mile, settled for
the place again. He finished 1 3/4 lengths clear of Hudson Landing, the 2012
Mile hero. Completing the order of finish were Longview Drive,
Horizontalyspeakin, Pepnic, Tribal Jewel, and Fast Track.

Pepper Crown entered Saturday’s race with no stakes experience, but he did
have a fine turf record. After running third in his debut on the dirt at
Pleasanton last June, Pepper Crown won his next two starts on grass at Santa
Rosa, and then finished second to multiple stakes winner Avare in a turf
allowance at Golden Gate Fields last August.

After a spell of nearly five months, Pepper Crown returned to action and
raced five times on Golden Gate’s Tapeta surface, winning two of five starts in
allowance and optional claiming company. His record now stands at 10-5-2-2,
$156,433.

A California-bred son of Peppered Cat and the Crowning Storm mare Crown This
Lady, Pepper Crown hails from a female line that once produced Hall of Famer
Seabiscuit and 1954 Kentucky Derby winner Determine, who captured the 1955 San
Francisco Mile.

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