SEPARATIONOFPOWERS WINS DUEL OF RISING STARS IN TEST

It wasn’t quite as dramatic as the 2002 renewal in which You (You and I) outbattled Carson Hollow (Carson City) the length of the Saratoga stretch, but Separationofpowers (Candy Ride {Arg}) completed a productive few minutes for her sire when she outfought a very stubborn Mia Mischief (Into Mischief) to lead home a ‘TDN Rising Star’ exacta the GI Longines Test S. at Saratoga.

The typically fast-starting Mia Mischief hit the ground running and led through the opening exchanges, but she showed a bit more of a rating gear than she had previously, as she and Ricardo Santana, Jr. allowed GIII Victory Ride S. runner-up Classy Act (Into Mischief) to take up the running a path or two off the fence. Separationofpowers settled in fourth spot on the back of Minit To Stardom (Star Guitar) while racing well off the inside. Santana released the handbrakes and allowed Mia Mischief to stride into the lead entering the turn, but Separationofpowers was pulled off heels and into the clear and made rapid progress around rivals to arrive at the top of the stretch on even terms. It looked as if she might blow the race open from there, but Mia Mischief proved very tough inside, clinging on grimly despite brushing with the eventual winner at the furlong grounds. The two raced shoulder to shoulder deep into the final sixteenth of a mile, with Separationofpowers just doing the better of the two in the final 20 yards.

Accorded ‘Rising Star’ status off an 11 3/4-length debut success last July, Separationofpowers was only third at 3-5 in the GI Spinaway S. before bouncing back to take the GI Frizette S. by 3 1/2 lengths. Forced to sit a wide trip from gate 13 in the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, the bay did well to be fourth and resumed in the Victory Ride July 8, stumbling at the break before finding more traffic at the eighth pole, then finishing with gusto.

“This filly was injured after her run in the Breeders’ Cup last year and had been going under a lot of rehab and patience to bring her back,” explained Chad Brown, winning the Test for the first time. “To bring her back to her race at Belmont and to have her stumble so bad out of the gate, she came back a little banged up. She grabbed her quarter, had a bunch of scratches all over her. I actually wasn’t sure I’d make the Test with her. Then she came around a couple of weeks later, started breezing again, got to feel her health again, and we came back with a beautiful clean break and a good run.”

Pedigree Notes:

One of a dozen top-level winners for her sire, Separationofpowers is out of a winning daughter of MSW Lasting Code, who is also the dam of SW Fusa Code (Fusaichi Pegasus) and the Irish SP Black Hawk War (War Front). The winner’s year-younger half-brother Empire of War (Declaration of War) breezed a half-mile from the gate over Saratoga’s Oklahoma training track in :48.14 (13/99) July 29 and Shehadmefromhello produced a filly by Verrazano in 2017 that is consigned by Bluewater Sales as hip 105 to Monday’s opening session of the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale. She was most recently bred back to Candy Ride.

SOURCE: TDN 8/4/18