Premier Star got his first stakes win Wednesday in Monmouth Park’s $100,000 Jersey Shore S., draw off in the stretch for a convincing 4 3/4-length win in the six-furlong contest for 3-year-olds.
Premier Star is Tapiture’s sixth overall stakes winner and one of his 11 stakes horses this year. The Darby Dan stallion leads all Second-Crop sires by both winners and wins.
Third in the Amsterdam S. (G2) at Saratoga in August, Premier Star showed his class in the Jersery Shore. He was away in third along the rail on the backstretch, then slipped through an opening to take the lead soon after a quarter-mile, then pulled clear while in hand the rest of the way.
The final time on a fast track was a snappy 1:09.61.
“He’s a big horse and a couple of them broke faster than he did but he was running once he got going,” said winning rider Paco Lopez. “I guess it was about the three-eighths that I had to decide to go outside or inside and I saw room on the rail and I took and he went right to the lead. He was very strong today.”
Premier Star, a $100,000 OBS 2-year-old, is owned by Sonata Stable. Wednesday’s win upped his record to 4-0-1 in seven outings and his earnings to $160,750.
The winner was bred in Kentucky by Charles Deters.
