Something Special Racing’s Hog Creek Hustle, by Overanalyze, stormed through the final furlong in the $400,000 Woody Stephens Stakes Presented by Mohegan Sun (G1) June 8 at Belmont Park to win by a neck.

The Vickie Foley trainee and jockey Corey Lanerie survived a pair of late threats—a surge in the final 110 yards by an onrushing Nitrous, and an objection as the stewards debated whether the winner caused Mind Control to lose any chance in the lane after Hog Creek Hustle shifted in a path in upper stretch.

The pace in the Woody Stephens was frenetic as longshot Strike Silver ripped through an opening quarter-mile in :21.92 and a half-mile in :44.53. Hog Creek Hustle completed the seven-furlong distance in 1:21.12. Off at odds of 18-1, he returned $39.80 on a $2 win bet.

“He didn’t have any speed,” Lanerie said. “I let him fall back and run his own race. When it was time to go I just went around everybody to where he could get some clean running room. When I turned for home and tried to switch leads, I had no intention of coming over on (Mind Control), but he does that when you try to grab the right rein, he tries to run away from it.

“I was lucky that they left him up because he was the best horse, but he needs to learn how to stay straight.”

“The seven furlongs was perfect (for him), exactly what we’d been looking for,” said Foley, who earned her first grade 1 win and recorded her first graded stakes win since She Says It Best won the Darley Alcibiades (G2) 14 years ago. “I was nervous during the (inquiry). Maybe because we’d come from Kentucky to the Big Apple (as visitors). But things went our way, and I think (the stewards) did the right thing.”
Winchell Thoroughbreds and Stonestreet Stables’ Nitrous was the runner-up. Preston Madden’s Borracho finished third, three-quarters of a length back.

It was the winner’s third tally from nine starts and first graded stakes victory, increasing his earnings to $440,100. He was bred in Kentucky by Hargus and Sandra Sexton and Silver Fern Farm, and was a $150,000 purchase by Stewart Smith from Warrendale Sales’ consignment to the 2017 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

Courtesy of the Bloodhorse

Something Special Racing became interested in the colt when co-owner Patty Tipton—favoring the mare Candy Fortune, by Candy Ride —noticed him in the Keeneland September catalog.