Home » News » Tapiture Beats Out Favorite and Wins Southwest Stakes

Tapiture Beats Out Favorite and Wins Southwest Stakes

Lizzy Park
On February 18, 2014

Tapiture Beats Out Favorite Strong Mandate for the Win at the 2014 Southwest Stakes: The Southwest Stakes took place at Oaklawn Park with a 12 horse field for the Grade 3 race for colts on Monday, February 17, 2014. The Southwest is another race that is a part of the official Road to the 2014 Kentucky Derby prep race series, giving the winner 10 points towards the Derby.

Tapiture, pictured above at Churchill Downs, won the Southwest Stakes on Monday, February 17, 2014 at Oaklawn Park awarding the colt with ten additional points on the Derby Trail.

Strong Mandate was one of the main favorites coming into the 2014 Southwest Stakes having won the Grade 1 Hopeful at Saratoga where he won by almost ten lengths and coming in third place at the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Strong Mandate however, wasn’t able to take the big win. It was Tapiture that took the victory. Tapiture is a three-year-old colt and is trained by Steve Asmussen and the jockey that rode Tapiture was Ricardo Santana, Jr.

Tapiture broke away from the pack at the top of the home stretch and stole a four length victory over Strong Mandate who came in second. Strong Mandate raced wide for most of the time and and tried to push past Tapiture at the wire, but he couldn’t rally enough speed to beat out Tapiture. Ride On Curlin came in third and Tanzanite Cat came in fourth place.

This marks the second graded stakes win for Tapiture as he also won the grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club last year. Tapiture took home the $300,000 purse and valuable points on the Derby Trail.

This is Tapiture’s debut season and trainer Asmussen is excited about Tapiture’s career, Asmussen stated, “He’s an extremely talented horse we feel real good about…We need him to keep getting better, getting stronger. Big step forward today, but he’s going to have to keep getting better because the competition will as well.”

Only time will tell what Taptiure will bring to the race track in the future, but so far so good.

Southwest Stakes 2014 Results and Payouts
2-Tapiture, $13.00 to Win, $4.80 to Place, $3.20 to Show
7-Strong Mandate, $3.40 to Place, $2.60 to Show
8-Ride On Curlin, $3.80 to Show

2014 Southwest Stakes Replay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlPcaa0TYgs