Michael Wharton’s multiple timber stakes winner Grinding Speed kicked off the 2015 season with a strong performance when he defeated Irvin L. Crawford II’s Senior Senator by 1 1/2 lengths in the $30,000 My Lady’s Manor on Saturday.
With Mark Beecher in the saddle for trainer Alicia Murphy, Grinding Speed ran the three miles of the My Lady’s Manor in 6:21.80 on ground rated as good.
Irv Naylor’s Tax Ruling set the early pace and held on for third. Magalen O. Bryant’s Dakota Slew was fourth in a field of nine.
Third in last year’s My Lady’s Manor, Grinding Speed concluded the 2014 season with his second triumph in the International Gold Cup in Virginia. He now is expected to pursue a second Virginia Gold Cup victory on Saturday, May 2.
Equinox Stable’s Snow Blizzard, scratched from the My Lady’s Manor, won the John D. Schapiro Memorial amateur apprentice timber race under Bethany Baumgardner.
Owner Bruton Street-US, trainer Jack Fisher, and rider Connor Hankin accounted for both divisions of the John Rush Streett Memorial with Two’s Company and Ballylifen, both Irish-breds.