Rolbea Thoroughbred Racing’s 5-year-old homebred Finallymadeit returned to form to win the $100,000 Memorial Day Handicap (gr. III) (VIDEO) May 25 at Calder Race Course, scoring in the event for the second year in a row.
While the 2008 version was an overnight stakes, this year’s was of the graded variety, giving the son of Concerto the third of his career. Like a year ago, Finallymadeit won in front running fashion under jockey Eduardo Nunez, taking his five rivals gate-to-wire for a 1 1/4-length victory.
Trained by Javier Negrete, Finallymadeit threw in an uncharacteristically poor performance last time out in the Sumter Stakes at Calder April 25, finishing last in the field of nine after never gaining the lead.
Running against all the same horses in the Memorial Day, Finallymadeit got out of the gate quickly and set the pace in the 1 1/16 miles race, much more his style. He never looked back and covered the distance in 1:45.55 over a sloppy track.
Motovato finished 1 1/4 lengths back in second with Dream Maestro another 5 1/2 lengths behind in third place.
“I was confident that he would run well today and even more so after it rained," Negrete said. "I still can’t tell you what happened in his last race, but he trained great coming up to this race. Once I saw :48 (for the half-mile), I knew they were mine.”
Finallymadeit paid $5.60, $3.20 and $2.20. Motovato returned $2.80 and $2.20, while Dream Maestro paid $2.20 to show. The exacta (4-3) was $17.80.
Bred in Florida by Rolbea and Rolando Rodriguez and out of the Gold Alert mare Gold for My Gal, Finallymadeit improved to 16-7-4 from 44 starts. He has now earned $992,645.
