Rafael Hernandez and filly Caitlinhergrtness made it worth the wait for Kevin Attard.
Hernandez moved Caitlinhergrtness past 3/5 favourite My Boy Prince in the deep stretch to capture the $1-million King’s Plate on Friday night. The race was originally scheduled to be run last Saturday but was postponed for safety reasons following heavy rain.
Caitlinhergrtness, a 9/1 pick and the lone filly in the field, was coming off a second-place finish to Kin’s Concerto in the Woodbine Oaks on July 20. That came just two weeks after a victory also at Woodbine, so part of the decision to supplement Caitlinhergrtness for the Plate rather than run in the Bison City Stakes — the second event of the Canadian Triple Tiara on Aug. 10 — was to give her more recovery time.
That was further extended by the postponement but Attard said his horse took everything in stride en route to her first stakes win in 2:03.45.
“She’s obviously all class and all racehorse,” said Attard. “She has handled everything really well.
“She’s withstanding everything we’ve thrown at her. I was happy with where he (Hernandez) positioned her the whole way around there and at the quarter pole, I thought we had a shot.”
Attard earned his second Plate victory, both having come with fillies. He earned the ’22 title with Moira.
Hernandez won North America’s longest continuously run stakes race a third time. In addition to also riding Moira, Hernandez claimed his first title in 2015 aboard Shaman Ghost.
“She was hot but she was getting on the bridle a little bit,” said Hernandez. “She gave me everything.
“I was covering all the time, all the time, and when I pulled the trigger, she just gave me everything.”
Still, Hernandez had to wait until the very end to celebrate, adding the moment he knew he’d won was, “When I crossed the wire.”
My Boy Prince, with Sahin Civaci aboard, finished second with stablemate Midnight Mascot, ridden by Luis Contreras, taking third in the field reduced to 12 horses with Bedard (also trained by Attard) being scratched.
