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CHAMPION SPIT CURL DIVA RETURNS TO FORM IN KEOKUK STAKES
Spit Curl Diva defends her Keokuk Stakes for the second straight year.
Jack Coady / Coady PhotographyALTOONA, IA—AUGUST 20, 2011—Spit Curl Diva is still the champ at Prairie Meadows. The 5-year-old mare beat some of the track's top older horses as she won the $52,011 Keokuk Stakes for the second straight year.
Spit Curl Diva, owned by Tom Lepic of Iowa City and Sara Morgan of Oklahoma, was the nation's champion aged mare and aged horse in 2010, when she won 8-of-10 starts. Ridden by David Brown, she has now won two stakes in four starts this year and is just now rounding into form after getting off to a later start this year.
Saddled by Jody Brown, she was making her first start since June 18, and Lepic worried before the race whether she'd be her sharpest for the Keokuk. She ran like she was, winning by a length from Eyesa Romantic. Her time of 19.556 seconds for 400 yards, was just off the track record of 19.450 that she set in the 2010 Keokuk.
"I was worried about 400 yards and not having run in two months," Lepic said. "I thought we needed to get a bigger lead to begin with, but it looked like at 200 yards they were pretty even, and she won the last 100 yards."
The Spit Curl Jess mare out of Some Kinda Diva, by Some Dasher has won 18-of-34 career starts for $774,401 in earnings. Little Deer Creek Quarter Horses bred her in Oklahoma. She will go next in the Prairie Meadows Championship Challenge on September 3.
Eyesa Romantic races for Karen Vazquez and is trained by Jose Aguilera. Berkley Packer was aboard the filly bred in Oklahoma by Jean Dillard. Out of the Chicks Beduino mare How Romantical, she earned $8,559.
Steven Pribyl's Six It Up was a head off Eyesa Romantic for the show position. Brent Clay saddled the E.D. Calvert-bred out of Biddies On A High, by On A High. Ridden by Thomas Wellington, she earned $5,538.
Completing the field were Cruzin To Victory, Opportunity Zooms, Sea Hunter, Crown Press and Sr Takin Chances. Bright Eyed Vision was scratched.