Favored So Many Ways was squeezed badly after the start of Saturday night’s Charles Town Oaks but rallied to get the 2 3/4-length come-from-behind victory in the $400,000 race for 3-year-old fillies on Race for the Ribbon night, an event the West Virginia track dedicated to breast cancer research in partnership with the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure Foundation.
Owned by Maggi Moss and trained by Tom Amoss, So Many Ways was ridden to victory by Miguel Mena. R Free Roll – who dueled with Jax and Jill through fractions of :22.89 and :46.44 through the opening half mile – finished second, with Mr Hall’s Opus rallying to get third in the field of nine. Final time on a sealed sloppy track was 1:26.62 after a six-furlong intermediate fraction of 1:12.48.
Mena bided his time after the poor break, letting So Many Ways race near the back of the pack for the first three furlongs. So Many Ways moved up to contention approaching the final turn and in the final sixteenth of a mile overtook R Free Roll – who opened a commanding lead at the top of the stretch – to win easily.
Bred in Kentucky by John R and John C Penn, So Many Ways is a 3-year-old filly from the first crop of Sightseeing, who stood at Richland Hills in Kentucky but died after intestinal surgery last December in Chile while on Southern Hemisphere stud duty.
The win was the fifth from 10 starts for So Many Ways, who captured the G2 Schuylerville and G1 Spinaway at Saratoga as a 2-year-old and the G3 Eight Belles at Churchill Downs this year. She was a $22,000 yearling purchase by agent James Schenk at the 2010 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic yearling sale, with Marshall Silverman the consignor.