After Review, Sales Tax Collects Win
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Sunday, November 2, 2008
Rodney Jenkins stood in the winner's circle yesterday with an unperturbed look on his face, watching the replay of the $50,000 All Brandy Stakes on the giant screen in the infield at Laurel Park. The trainer's 5-year-old mare, Ten Bolts, had just turned in her finest career performance, repelling the challenge of stakes winner Sales Tax in the stretch and crossing the finish line first by a half-length.
But up on the tote board, the stewards had flashed the inquiry sign. Ten Bolts, ridden by Travis Dunkelberger, drifted out in the stretch into the path of Sales Tax, and the stewards wanted to review the replay. For emphasis, Sales Tax's rider, Malcolm Franklin, filed an objection.
Jenkins, figuring he had a 10-1 winner, asked Dunkelberger what happened and then said simply: "I think the best horse won. She ran away from her. The other horse didn't run away from us."
The stewards disagreed and disqualified Ten Bolts for drifting out, placing her second.
While the race was being sorted out, Sales Tax trainer Hamilton Smith watched a replay monitor upstairs in the clubhouse. He said he was too superstitious to go to the winner's circle, fearing he'd jinx the ruling on his way down.
"We didn't think they'd take him down," Smith said of Dunkelberger. "But she came out and over there and carried [Sales Tax] out. You read the rule book, and you have to keep a straight line in the lane."
Officially, Sales Tax, a 3-year-old chestnut owned and bred by William Backer, won the 1 1/8 -mile turf race for Maryland-bred fillies and mares in 1 minute 51.08 seconds. She paid $7.80 for a $2 win bet.
After a promising sophomore season in which she won turf stakes races at Colonial Downs and Monmouth, and finished second by a neck in another at the Meadowlands, her 3-year-old season had been a letdown for Smith.
She finished last in an off-the-turf race at Delaware in her return after an eight-month vacation and then placed in three straight races without winning. In her start before the All Brandy, the Pebbles Stakes on Oct. 13 at Belmont Park, Sales Tax returned bleeding heavily around her right eye.
In the All Brandy though, both Sales Tax and Ten Bolts clearly were superior to the six other runners in the field.
