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Special Wan and jockey Joel Rosario surge to the front to win Saturday\u2019s $2 million Resolute Racing Ladies Turf (G2) at Kentucky Downs in Franklin. (COADY MEDIA)<\/p>\nFavorite Special Wan wins Resolute Racing Ladies Turf<\/p>\n
Published 8:29 pm Saturday, August 30, 2025<\/p>\n
Special Wan and jockey Joel Rosario surge to the front to win Saturday\u2019s $2 million Resolute Racing Ladies Turf (G2) at Kentucky Downs in Franklin. (COADY MEDIA)<\/p>\n
FRANKLIN \u2013\u00a0Team Valor International and Steven Rocco\u2019s Special Wan (IRE), the 2-1 favorite, was angled five wide into the stretch by Hall of Fame jockey Joel Rosario and came flying late to win Saturday\u2019s $2 million Resolute Racing Ladies Turf (G2) by a half-length over Segesta at Kentucky Downs.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce a year I do what I call invoke the \u2018God play,\u2019 said Barry Irwin of Team Valor. \u201cI appeal to the higher deity. I chose this race today. No. 2, it\u2019s rare that you can actually have everything line up perfectly. This one lined up perfectly today. Usually I get a little nervous. I\u2019m cold as ice. This was our day. Thank you, Lord. That\u2019s all I can say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Special Wan chased the pace set by In Our Time through the first half of the one-mile race, waiting mid-pack until the uphill climb toward the finish line. That\u2019s when Rosario allowed her to barrel through traffic, eventually bearing down on Segesta and bumping her in late stretch before prevailing in a record time of 1:31.74. In Our Time held on for third after setting fractions of 21.74 and 44.24 for the first half-mile.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we were going to be a little more into the race, but she took her time today, and I just kind of had to ride her from there,\u201d Rosario said. \u201cShe didn\u2019t seem like last year when I won with her here. She tried hard all the time. She\u2019s an honest filly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the narrow loss, jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. said Segesta delivered a solid performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got a beautiful trip,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t complain. Just got beat. Just got caught on the wire. She ran good. I saved ground and got through on the inside and cleared. Was a little unlucky. We got caught.\u201d<\/p>\n
Special Wan ran for $1 million and not $2 million because she is an Irish-bred and not a Kentucky-bred. However, trainer Brendan Walsh wasn\u2019t too disappointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still a massive purse,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t get to run for that kind of money too often, so it\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walsh said they would most likely point to the Grade 1 First Lady Stakes at Keeneland on Oct. 4.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a nice filly. She\u2019s done well since last year,\u201d Walsh said. \u201cShe\u2019s gone from strength to strength to hopefully there will be another nice race or two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Special Wan improved her record to 4-2-3 in 10 starts and has now earned $827,598. She returned $6.44, $4.14 and $3.32.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Favorite Special Wan wins Resolute Racing Ladies Turf Published 8:29 pm Saturday, August 30, 2025 Special Wan and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-104546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}