Gabriel Duignan's Echo Sound cruised to a two-length win in the $150,000 Miss Preakness Stakes (G3) May 16 at Pimlico Race Course, earning her first graded stakes win off a nearly six-month layoff.
The 3-year-old daughter of Echo Town broke sharply to take a brief lead before settling in behind horses. The Rusty Arnold trainee stalked the pacesetters five wide into the turn through fractions of :22.95, :46.14, :58.49 before making her move in the stretch under Luis Saez to finish the six-furlong race in 1:11.14. She paid $9.80 to win.
Longshots You'll Be Back and Hollygrove finished second and third respectively.
"I knew she was going to break sharp from there," Saez said. "We decided to take in a little bit off the pace, and she finished pretty strong. She ran an amazing race, and we're so grateful to be around her. She's a special filly.
"Rusty Arnold didn't give me any instructions. He told me, 'You know how to ride her. You know her. Do what you want to.'"
"We knew it was a lot to ask of her coming off of a layoff," said Lyndsay Buttice, assistant trainer to Rusty Arnold. "But, we think very highly of her and felt confident based on the way she has been training. She's really developed physically coming into her 3-year-old year.
"She is such a pleasure to work with and everything you could ask for in a racehorse—smart, classy, and professional. I could not be more impressed with the way she shipped here, behaved, and put it together for us. She makes our job very easy."
Echo Sound won the Myrtlewood Stakes last fall at Keeneland, before finishing her 2-year-old campaign with a game second in last year's Fern Creek Stakes at Churchill Downs. She now has a record of 4-1-0 in five starts, and career earnings of $363,745. She was bred in Kentucky by Springhouse Farm, Vision TBs, and Bruce and Patricia Pieratt.
Buttice said they will monitor Echo Sound when she gets back to Keeneland to see how she came out of the race before making any future plans.
"We are hoping for a big year with her and we're very excited to see what she'll do next. I know there are several options but most importantly is to see how she handled this first."
Second-crop sire Echo Town, a grade 1-winning son of Speightstown, stands for $5,000 at Ashford Stud near Versailles, Ky.
