Ifitwasntfor Texas caught several breaks in his upset victory in the fourth race. Break number one came when fellow speedster Retire To What broke through the gate, ran off and was scratched prior to the start. Break number two came shortly thereafter when jockey Luis Jurado decided to take a hold of speedball Russian Sage allowing Ifitwasntfortexas and jockey Daniel Coa to make the lead in the five furlong turf dash. Break number three came when the wire arrived in time for Ifitwasnfor Texas to not only hold off the late surging Safety Squeeze but at about the same time the winner ducked out and roughed up the runner up severely enough to be taken down had the foul occured several strides sooner. Following a claim of foul by the rider of Safety Squeez and a stewards inquiry, the result stood as is. It was the proper call.
A couple of other observations came out of the same race. Both Lettie's Relic and Possetothemax are living on reputation only at this point and are well off their best game at this time. Another is to watch back for Paster's Bad Habit who finished best of all following a slow start and galloped out past the field shortly after the wire.
Jockey Eduardo Nunez swept both ends of the early daily double aboard the 2-year-old first time starter Coco Top and the improving 3-year-old filly Rock With You. The winningest jockey in Calder history got off to a slow start at the meet but seems to be gaining momentum now.
