Maiden King

Winner #12 Jilona was trained by Beau Greely and bred by the owner John Greely, Beau's father.

In November and December, #12 Jilona ran in two maiden special weight sprints for 2-year-olds where she was able to keep up with the early leaders for a half a mile.

In those races, Jilona showed that she had a superior quarter mile burst of speed to any of the runners going in this $32,000 maiden claimer. On Sunday, Jilona broke sharply then settled a few lengths off of leader #6 Betterthanfiction.

Coming into the stretch, Chantal Sutherland’s three-length lead on Betterthanfiction had dwindled to one, and Jilona was coming hard with a four-wide move. Jilona took over with an eighth of a mile to the wire and held off #4 She’s All Rev’d Up.

For betting purposes, I was waiting for 3-to-1 on Jilona, but she ended up going off at 5-to-2. I had four horses that I was considering, but only one of them went off in my odds range. So, I ended up with $100 on #13 Stormy Runaway at 31-to-1 based on her huge middle move in her last race.