Security Code holds off Venti Valentine for her first stakes score in Saturday’s Broadway. NYRA Photo.
Phil Serpe never doubted Security Code’s ability, all the way back to the daughter of Frosted’s 2-year-old season. Security Code lived up to that billing in 2022, winning in her second start after a runner-up finish to the talented Maple Leaf Mel in her debut at Saratoga Race Course.
“We’re looking to run her longer as we get down the road,” Serpe told The Saratoga Special in his annual Fasig-Tipton Stable Tour. “She’s a nice filly and we like her a lot.”
Serpe said similar last season, when the bay filly came to Saratoga with one more win and three stakes placings
“I always thought she was going to be a nice horse,” Serpe said in 2023. “She seems like she just doesn’t quite get there in the stakes, but she ran well here and will get another chance before the end of the meet.”
Security Code made the most of that chance – winning a 6-furlong restricted allowance-optional over closing weekend – and ended her run of futility in stakes competition Saturday, holding off her late-running rivals to win the $100,000 Broadway for older New York-bred fillies and mares. Again, to the delight of her veteran conditioner.
“She’s got some fight in her, doesn’t she?,” Serpe said Saturday after Security Code won by a neck over 5-2 favorite Venti Valentine. “We were kind of resigned to the fact that 6 furlongs might be her thing. She did win at 7 furlongs before, but usually you see how good a horse is going to be somewhere into their 3-year-old year.
“She just keeps getting a little bit better and she just seems to be improving. Maybe seven-eighths will be as far as she wants to go, but it’s a good result considering the New York-bred program, which we love and we’re a big part of, so that works out for her.”
Campaigned by Dr. Robert and Laura Vokovich’s WellSpring Stables, Security Code landed her first stakes victory after winning a 6-furlong open-company allowance last month. She won the 7-furlong Broadway in 1:26.77 over the good track under Jose Lezcano.
Security Code improved to 5-for-19 with five seconds and five thirds and earnings of $419,040.
“Dr. Vukovich and his wife, Laura, are great people to train for and it’s always good to win for them,” Serpe said. “It’s good for this filly and she just keeps churning out a lot of good races. It’s funny, Andy Serling mentioned [on America’s Day at the Races] that she just keeps going. She was running here last January and she was running every month into February.”
Bred by Rockridge Stud LLC, Ascendant Farms LLC and Godolphin and out of the Grade 3-placed Montbrook mare Stopspendingmaria, Security Code is indeed proving to be a throwback. Since her debut Aug. 10, 2022, she’s made starts in every month but one (June 2023) since leading up to the Broadway.
Placed in the 2022 Key Cents at Aqueduct and the 2023 Franklin Square Stakes and East View Stakes, both also at the Big A, Security Code went to the post of the Broadway as the 5-1 fourth choice behind Venti Valentine, Kant Hurry Love and Majestic Return.
Lezcano put her in the race early from post six, keeping tabs on early battling leaders Kant Hurry Love and Majestic Return to through opening splits of :23.11 and :47.23. They stayed wide approaching the stretch run and needed to only pass Kant Hurry Love in the lane.
Security Code edged clear of that foe inside the final sixteenth and had enough left to hold off Venti Valentine. Kant Hurry Love finished another 1 ¼ lengths back with Sweetest Princess fourth in the field of seven.
“She broke pretty good and I was happy with the position I got,” Lezcano said. “She’s more comfortable when she’s outside horses. I put her in the clear and she take me from there. When I asked her at the quarter-pole, she kept running. My filly felt the other horse [Venti Valentine] outside and she picked it up again. She pinned her ears back and she wasn’t going to let her go by. She kept running.”
Security Code is one of four winners and two stakes winners out of Stopspendingmaria, originally a $90,000 purchase by Repole Stables at the 2010 OBS Calder sale of selected 2-year-olds in training. She later sold in foal to Outwork to Rockridge Stud for $32,000 at the 2019 Keeneland January horses of all ages sale.
Stopspendingmaria is the dam of the Uncle Mo mare No Mo’ Spending, winner of the 2020 Joseph A. Gimma Stakes; stakes-placed $360,765-earner Blewitt, an 8-year-old New York-bred son of Uncle Mo and the winning New York-bred Overanalyze mare Analyzeyurspending.
Stopspendingmaria is also the dam of the 2-year-old New York-bred Malibu Moon filly Maria Moon, who was bred by Rockridge, Ascendant and Spendthrift Farm and sold for $225,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale; and a yearling New York-bred colt by Modernist bred by Rockridge and Ascendant. The same breeders also welcomed a filly out of the mare by Greatest Honour born on Valentine’s Day.
