A Regular Visitor From New York, Come Fly Away Pays for the Trip Again

BALTIMORE, May 24 -- Come Fly Away, a big, gray 4-year-old filly, lives at Belmont Park, but no longer races in New York.

In each of the past five months, trainer Michael Hushion has put Come Fly Away on a van early in the morning and shipped her to Maryland to run at Laurel Park and Pimlico.

Considering the success other New York trainers have had doing the same thing, it was no surprise when Come Fly Away found her way to the Pimlico winner's circle Saturday, winning the $50,000 Shine Again for Maryland-bred fillies and mares.

"No secret there," said Graham Wolfram, a top assistant to Hushion, looking at the $3.60. "New York trainers are coming down here, and we're running against each other."

New York-based horses have won 18 of the 42 stakes races run in Maryland this year, two more than the local runners. Eight others were trained elsewhere. Hushion also won the Grade II $300,000 Barbara Fritchie handicap in February with Golden Dawn.

In five Maryland starts beginning with an allowance victory at Laurel on Jan. 25, Come Fly Away has won three times, and the victory in the Shine Again, her first try in stakes company, was the most important.

"She's a black-type winner now," Wolfram said, referring to the bold lettering used in sales guides to denote stakes victories.

Come Fly Away, bred at Thornmar Farm in Chestertown by Charles and Cynthia McGinnes, was one of four runners in the seven-horse field to have finished behind Lexi Star in the Geisha Stakes on April 19 at Pimlico. Wolfram said "their form carried to their next race, and this filly ran her race today."

When the gate opened, long shot Nanicoke went to the lead, while jockey Luis Garcia angled in Come Fly Away from the No. 5 post position and found a comfortable spot along the rail.

Saving ground on both turns of the 1 1/16 -mile race, Come Fly Away took over with 3/16 of a mile to run when Nanicoke tired and began to drift out. Take a Check, who has won more than $460,000 while winning only 5 of 46 races in her career, made a bold bid on the outside and briefly put her head in front, but Come Fly Away battled back and won by a half length in a time of 1 minute 44.75 seconds.

"I noticed [Nanicoke] was getting out, and I decided to stay on the rail," Garcia said. "I got a lot of horse on the turn. When I saw Take a Check on the lead, I knew I still had a lot of horse. I went for it, and she won easy."

Racing Notes: Take a Check has now collected a check in 43 of her 46 starts for trainer Richard Small. . . . Garrett Gomez, winner of the 2007 Eclipse Award, will replace Julien Leparoux aboard Preakness Stakes runner-up Macho Again for the Belmont Stakes, West Point Thoroughbreds President Terry Finley announced. "We're going up there trying to win it, not that we think we couldn't win it with Julien," trainer Dallas Stewart said. "Terry just felt that it would give us a little bit of an edge to have someone that rides there every day." Gomez leads the country with more than $7.4 million in earnings this year.