Looking Cool calm and collected in Iowa Derby
Jim Tafel’s Kentucky homebred Looking Cool bounced back from his eighth-place
finish in his graded debut just two weeks ago to capture his first stakes in
Saturday’s Grade 3, $250,000
Iowa
Derby at Prairie Meadows.
The 17-1, third longest shot in the field was reserved early on just biding
his time as Our Double Play set the pace with fractions of :23 1/5, :46 4/5 and
1:11 2/5, before fading in the stretch.
Looking Cool was near the back of the pack early on before gradually making
his way toward the leaders. The three-year-old colt started to advance on the
far turn, made a four-wide rally in the stretch to grab hold of the lead, but
was forced to dig in late to hold off runner-up Betweenhereandcool by a neck at
the wire.
Betweenhereandcool took second, while 6-5 favorite Bashaar was 1 1/4 lengths back in third. Our Double Play, Manando, Kale’s Kourage and Stormdriver rounded
out the order of finish.
With Leandro Goncalves aboard, Looking Cool covered 1 1/16 miles over the
fast main track in 1:44 1/5 to pay his supporters $36.20, $17.80 and $6.20. The
Carl Nafzger charge collected $150,000 to boost his bankroll to $237,877 and now
sports a record that stands at 10-3-2-0.
The son of Candy Ride attempted to break his maiden while making four starts as a
two-year-old but was unsuccessful. He finally got the monkey off his back in his
first start as a three-year-old on January 5 at Gulfstream Park. Looking Cool
wound up sixth later in the month in an optional claimer which was captured by
the future Kentucky Derby winner Orb.
Looking Cool took almost two months off before returning to the track to
score in an optional claimer. He made his stakes debut in his next start at
Oaklawn Park in the Northern Spur, finishing second, and was exiting a
disappointing result in the Matt Winn.
The dark bay is out of the Grade 3-placed multiple stakes-winning Forest
Wildcat mare Coolwind. His granddam is the Grade 3 victress Scoop, while his
third dam is Grade 3 victress and 1991 Kentucky Oaks third Til Forbid, who also produced
the dam of Grade 2
queen Sara Louise and Grade 3 winner Just Louise.
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