$80,000 LURE STAKES

JOCKEY QUOTES

MIKE SMITH, SUMTER, WINNER: “We were blessed to have a really good trip. Mr. Mandella really liked him today. He said he was doing really good. He actually put it in my head and said, ‘Listen somewhere down the backside going into the far turn, go ahead and don’t wait on him, give it to him and see what he does, because if you wait on him he hasn’t been finishing like we believe he could.’ So I did it and it worked. I have to give him the credit.

“(Lure) is probably to this day the greatest grass horse I’ve ever ridden. He was just an amazing horse. To ride him for the Claiborne family, the Hancock family, that in itself is really special. Actually, the Hancock family are a little bit a part of this. Mrs. Dell Hancock and Ramona Bass are dear friends and so to win this today, to win the Lure stakes, it means a lot to me.”

TRAINER QUOTES

RICHARD MANDELLA, SUMTER, WINNER: “Sometimes it takes me four or five years to learn how to train one. He had a good trip. He’s been training out of his mind. I was going to enter him in an allowance race next week. But the other horse (favorite Seal Team) hadn’t run in a while and might be rusty, so I thought we’d take a second chance at it.”

NOTES: The winning owners/breeders are Perry Bass II, and Ramona Bass.