LOUISVILLE, Ky., Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Awesome Feather dueled down the stretch with R Heat Lightning in Friday's $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, then pulled away to win by daylight.
R Heat Lightning finished second with Delightful Mary third. Awesome Feather, now perfect in six starts this year, ran the 1 1/16 miles on a fast track in 1:45.17 as jockey Jeffrey Sanchez won the first Breeders' Cup race of his career.
Awesome Feather won all five previous races at Calder Race Course in South Florida, including a sweep of the rich Florida Stallion Series. "She just kept working her way up the ladder," said winning trainer Stanley Gold.
The win also is likely to propel Awesome Feather, a Florida-bred daughter of Awesome of Course, to an Eclipse Award as the year's top 2-year-old filly.
The race also was the first Breeders' Cup contest run under lights, although darkness had not yet set in completely at Churchill Downs. The 1998 Classic, also at Churchill Downs, was run virtually in the dark, but that was before the oval installed lights.
