Pushiness © Benoit Photo

Repole Stable’s Pushiness broke sharply under Umberto Rispoli, set rapid fractions in the early part of her seven-furlong journey, then drew clear late to tally impressively in the $151,500 Fleet Treat Stakes for California-bred 3-year-old fillies Friday at Del Mar.

The bay daughter of Kantharos finished three and a half lengths ahead of race favorite Grand Slam Smile, who is owned and was bred by Mr.-Mrs. Larry D. Williams. Finishing third was Bisharat or Khoury’s Safa, another length and a half behind.

The winner earned a check for $85,500 and increased her earnings to $205,290. She covered the distance in 1:23.03.

Pushiness went off at 2.80 to 1 and paid $7.60 to win. Grand Slam Smile was the 4/5 favorite in the dash.

Racing resumes at Del Mar tomorrow with first post slated for 2 p.m.

Umberto Rispoli (Pushiness, winner) – “Always with her the question mark was ‘Can she do the distance?’ She is a fast filly and she has some good gate speed. The track has been very fast, so we were wishing that her gate speed would help. It did, and she had a good blow out around the turn and she kept on for the finish. She is a very fast filly but I leave it to Michael on where she goes from here.” 

MICHAEL MCCARTHY (Pushiness, winner) – “We made it real simple and told him (Rispoli) to bounce out of there and hopefully find yourself on the lead and that’s exactly what she did. The filly has a lot of natural speed. At the quarter pole when the Northern California filly wasn’t making up any ground I had a decent feeling that she’d hold on.”

FRACTIONS:  :21.93  :44.31  1:09.35  1:23.03

The stakes win was the third of the meet for rider Rispoli.  He now has 28 stakes wins at Del Mar. 

The stakes win was the second of the meet for trainer McCarthy. He now has nine stakes wins at Del Mar. 

The owner is Repole Stable of Mike Repole of New York.