Jim Tafel’s homebred COUNTRY FLAVOR (Empire Maker) made his stakes debut a
winning one in Saturday’s $100,000
Hanshin Cup (G3), springing a 21-1 upset in the one-mile event at Arlington
Park. The four-year-old gelding secured a good tracking position behind slow early splits of :24 1/5 and :48 1/5,
rallied to the lead leaving the far turn and
quickly drew clear in upper stretch beneath jockey Inez Karlsson. The Greg Geier
trainee easily withstood the late run of Tybalt (Storm Cat) to win by
three-quarters of a length, stopping the teletimer over the Polytrack in 1:38.
“I know he likes the Polytrack,” Karlsson said. “Greg told me to sit off the
pace a little bit because there was a lot of speed in the race but when I broke
out of the gate there was no speed and I was sitting where I was. I had him in
hand and I had a lot of horse on the turn that I thought I could steal it and
that’s what I did.”
After being beaten by double-digit lengths in a pair of allowance/optional
events on dirt and turf, Country Flavor made the successful switch to synthetics
and paid $44.40, $20.20 and $9 as the penultimate choice among nine rivals.
Tybalt, the 3-1 second choice, gave back $5.20 and $3.80 after finishing a
length clear of Gran Estreno (Arg) (Lucky Roberto), who offered a mild bid from
off the pace and wound up third as the 3-1 favorite, paying $3.20. The 6-1
Victory Notion (Victory Gallop) came next under the wire and was followed by
Recapturetheglory (Cherokee Run), Mad Flatter (Flatter), Wildeydsouthernboy
(Double Honor), Brothers Nicholas (Smart Strike) and McLard (Slew City Slew).
The exotics yielded $236 (exacta), $1,151.20 (trifecta) and $4,042.40
(4-7-6-5 superfecta).
Country Flavor, who has now earned $139,390 from a 13-4-1-2 career line,
hails from a royal female family. The first foal out of the Grade 3-winning
Allspice (Coronado’s Quest), he is a half-sibling to a yearling colt by Stormy
Atlantic and a 2010 colt by Street Sense. His third dam is 1980 Mother Goose
(G1) winner Sugar and Spice (Key to the Mint), who produced Grade 2 queen and
multiple Grade 1 runner-up Cinnamon Sugar (Ire) (Wild Again). Sugar and Spice is
out of 1977 Broodmare of the Year Sweet Tooth (On-and-On) and is a half-sister
to 1977 champion three-year-old filly Our Mims (*Herbager), dam of the great
sire Alydar (Raise of Native).