Richard Greeley’s Cara’s Time upsets Sunday’s Joseph A. Gimma Stakes. Susie Raisher/NYRA Photo.
By Alec DiConza
Cara’s Time may have been the longest shot on the board at 22-1, but that didn’t stop the gray or roan filly from defeating her four rivals in Sunday’s Joseph A. Gimma Stakes at the Belmont at the Big A meet.
Breaking from the inside post, the 2-year-old New York-bred daughter of Not This Time rushed to the lead in the early stages of the 7-furlong contest. Under Dylan Davis, Cara’s Time set fractions of :22.87 for the quarter and :46.23 for the half before kicking clear of the stalking My Shea D Lady at the top of the stretch.
Though undefeated 4-5 favorite Caldwell Luvs Gold came with her typical closing kick, Cara’s Time was able to hold off the challenger en route to a 1 1/2-length score on the sloppy and sealed track. My Man Squeeze finished third with My Shea D Lady and Nicky Jolene completing the field.
Owned by Richard Greeley and trained by Mitch Friedman, Cara’s Time won in 1:23.28.
“I’d never sat on her in the morning, but I saw she had good gate speed,” Davis said. “Our plan was to break and come out running. When she got there, she was loving every part of it. She was a little skipper on that mud and she really got comfortable. I could hear them behind me trying to range up at the two-and-a-half, and I just tried to get her run going a little bit, but not too much because she got late there with [Jose] Lezcano last time out. She just kept finding more and more down the lane, so it was great. The one closer [Caldwell Luvs Gold] was coming, but I knew it was too late for her.”
Cara’s Time turned the tables on Caldwell Luvs Gold in the Gimma, rebounding in a big way from a fifth in the Seeking the Ante Stakes at Saratoga Race Course when finishing 25 3/4 lengths back. Friedman was very pleasantly surprised to see the change in fortune this time around.
“I thought she would probably get the lead by herself, but I was surprised [to win] a bit,” Friedman said. “She didn’t run good last time, but I knew she had a good excuse. I put the blinkers on her and it made her a little worse. She’s nervous and wants to react to it. She had dumped the rider after she broke her maiden, and in the mornings, if she sees something, she won’t walk through the end of the barn – she has to go through the middle if there’s something she doesn’t like. I thought the blinkers would help with all of that and she worked well with them, but we took them off and [hoped] she would stay focused.”
Friedman believes the sloppy surface helped Cara’s Time snatch the first stakes victory of her career.
“The wet track probably helped her out a lot,” he said. “Dylan said she was gliding over it and that she likes the wet track.”
Friedman didn’t commit to a next start for Cara’s Time.
“We’ll look and see what’s next on the schedule,” he said. “We’re in no rush.”
Cara’s Time now has two wins in three starts with earnings of $118,000.
Bred by Stephen Crestani Jr., Cara’s Time is out of the Macho Uno mare Zindra. Greeley purchased Cara’s Time for $175,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-bred yearling sale. Zindra has produced one other winner among her three to race – the New York-bred Tapizar mare Glorious Tapizar.
