Spit Curl Diva Scored Dominating Win In Saturdays Prairie Meadows Championship Challenge

By Dan Johnson, Prairie Meadows Media Writer Tom Lepic of Iowa City had to come up with a new superlative to describe Spit Curl Diva's recordsetting win in Saturday's $71,280 Prairie Meadows Championship Challenge. Lepic, who owns Spit Curl Diva with Sara Morgan, had said beforehand that running in the Championship Challenge, sponsored by the Bank of America, was like being in a BCS Bowl game. After seeing the 5-year-old mare blow away an all-star field in the track-record time of 21.162 seconds for 440 yards, he said it was even sweeter than he had imagined. "Tonight was the Super Bowl, I think," Lepic said. "When you look at everybody here tonight, it was the Super Bowl of horse racing for us. Being here with all of our friends and family and to watch her run the way she did, it was really it was awesome." The only female in the nine-horse field, Spit Curl Diva dominated from the outset. She broke first and opened up more than a length lead after 200 yards. She kept that margin as Jess a Runner, the 2010 Championship Challenge winner, chased her to the wire. She could have run against fillies in the Distaff Challenge, but Lepic and Morgan wanted to race her against the colts. "We had to give her a shot to run against the best," Lepic said. "This might have been her best race ever. She beat the best by a long ways tonight. It was incredible to see her run this well." Jess a Runner set the previous track record of 21.199 seconds last year. Now, Spit Curl Diva owns both the 400- and 440-yard records at Prairie Meadows. She has won 19-of-35 career starts for $807,503 in earnings. She's one of a kind, jockey David Brown said. I've never had a filly to ride that was that good. She's remarkable. She doesn't know what she's in with, boys or girls. There were three Challenge races Saturday, all regional qualifiers for the national finals at Los Alamitos in Southern California. Dashmetothemoon won the $30,600 Merial Distaff Challenge for fillies and mares, beating last year's winner, Believers Gathering. It was her first victory in six starts this year, although she had been second in her last three outings. One of those seconds was in the Sam Houston Distaff Challenge. "She's been running seconds and seconds and seconds," trainer Alvin Francis said. "I guess she made up her mind tonight. She's a nice filly. She's real quiet. you never know when she's ready, because she's so quiet. I guess she was just ready today. Those were some nice horses she beat." Breaking from the No. 1 post, she was part of a wall of horses that broke evenly, but inched ahead in the final 100 yards. "She kept chipping away at them," jockey Stormy Smith said. "We got away pretty good and kept running to them and running to them, and drawing away." Also breaking a case of seconditis was Mr Corona Blue in the $37,890 John Deere Juvenile Challenge for 2-year-olds. He had been second twice in four career starts, including his trial for the Juvenile Challenge. He broke alertly and kept the lead throughout the 350 yards to nip Circle Ur Wagons. "Those seconds are good, but I was getting tired of them," joked trainer Charley Hunt, who won the Juvenile Challenge for the fourth time in its 13 runnings at Prairie Meadows. "He ran a good race. This little colt has always been honest." Mr Corona Blue, ridden by Cody Rodger Smith, went off as the 9-5 favorite in large part because he had the fastest trial time of the nine horses that started in the finals after favored Cowboy Kudzu scratched. Cowboy Kudzu had finished a half-length in front of Mr Corona Blue in their trial race. "It was an open race after that other horse (Cowboy Kudzu) came out," Hunt said. "The other horse is a nice horse." Mr Corona Blue ran the 350 yards in 17.65 seconds, which was 0.13 seconds off the stakes record.