Loving, a 7-year-old gelding who found no takers when he was offered for a $65,000 claiming tag last October, called upon his back class and long-distance ability yesterday to win the $75,000 Gallant Fox Handicap, going a mile-and-five-eighths over Aqueduct’s inner dirt track.
Content to sit well off the blistering early pace set by 118-pound highweight Jarf, Loving exploded around the far turn under Jose Espinoza, quickly opened daylight and cruised home by a rousing 73/4 lengths.
“I asked him to go on before the half-mile pole, and he really started running,” Espinoza said. “When I asked him, he was all there.”
Nothing Flat, last early in the field of 10, was along for second, 81/4 lengths clear of Fisher Pond in third. Tailfromthecrypt, favored at 5-2, barely lifted a hoof and trailed home seventh.
“I didn’t have any horse at any point in the race,” said jockey Chucky Lopez.
Trained by Rick Dutrow Jr., Loving was making just his ninth start in the last two years, following a layoff of more than a year from June ’02 to last August. Before Dutrow got him, the veteran Brazilian-bred was primarily a turf horse residing in the southern California barn of Neil Drysdale, who ran him in marathon turf stakes like the Sunset and San Marcos.
Loving paid $41.80, topping a $329.50 exacta.