Contact Information:
Bob Roberts (216-662-8600)
May 1, 2009
www.thistledown.com
Defending Champion Pay The Man Heads Thistledown's Angenora Stakes
Pyrite Stables' Pay the Man seeks to make Thistledown history Saturday when she heads a field of 11 Ohio-bred fillies and mares in the $50,000 Angenora Stakes, the first added-money race of the local thoroughbred season.
The 5-year-old daughter of Bernstein, who adores the North Randall racing surface --- she's won seven of eight career starts, six of them stakes --- has won the last two renewals of the Angenora. No Buckeye-bred distaffer has ever won the six-furlong dash three times. Crypto's Redjet (1996-97) and Crack The Code (1998-99) won the Angenora twice, posting back-to-back triumphs.
"She's doing great," said Miguel Feliciano, who trains Pay The Man. "Her last race (April 21) at Tampa Bay Downs was a good one. It was a tough field and she handled them."
Other stakes winners in the Angenora field are Drake Racing Stable's Money Card, winner of last year's Ted Classen Memorial at Thistledown, Ready to Rock, winner of the 2007 Tah Dah at River Downs, Eye Can't Look Back, winner of Beulah's Royal North in 2008, and Part Girlie Girl, winner of last year's Cincinnatian at River Downs.
Making her stakes debut is Jean Tait's Maui Sunset. Tait is the wife of legendary Cleveland Cavaliers' play-by-play man, Joe Tait. Trained by Jevon Crumley, Maui Sunset is a reformed claimer who has won her last two starts.
Pay The Man, a winner of 11 of 28 starts and $396,185, drew the No. 5 post for the Angenora and will be ridden by Ricardo Feliciano, the trainer's nephew.
"She only ran twice at Tampa, but it doesn't take much to get her ready," said Miguel Feliciano. "She got to Thistledown last Saturday. It's a 20-hour van ride from Tampa but she ships good."
Pay The Man, voted Ohio's champion handicap mare last year, has never finished behind a filly or mare in a Thistledown stakes race. Her lone added-money defeat came in the 2007 Cleveland Gold Cup, when she finished second to stablemate Pyrite Personal, a colt.