D Hatman Thoroughbreds’ Determined Driver rolled to a 12 ½-length victory in the $100,000 Beyond the Wire S. Saturday at Laurel Park to give the 3-year-old Dialed In filly her first stakes win.
Twice stakes-placed in her first four starts prior to Saturday, Determined Driver is 3-2-0 in five starts and has earned $178,810.
Dialed In, who is a perennial top-10 sire of winners, has gotten off to a solid start once again in 2024, currently ranked 16th on the North American General Sire list.
Determined Driver, facing just four foes in the one-turn mile race, sat a couple lengths off the lead for the long backstretch run. When asked to make her move three furlongs from the wire, she quickly took command from Kissedbyanangel and never looked back, widening her lead through the stretch to coast under the wire.
“It went way better than I thought I would. You never expect them to win by that much in stakes company, so I’m very pleased with her,” jockey Forest Boyce said. “Every race she’s shown up, and Phil does an incredible job getting them ready.”
The Beyond the Wire is followed in Laurel’s series of stakes for 3-year-old fillies by the $100,000 Weber City Miss going 1 1/16 miles April 20, a ‘Win and In’ qualifier for the $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan (G2), May 17 at Pimlico.
Determined Driver, bred in Maryland by 2500 Determined Stud, is the first foal to race out of Elevated Vision, herself a stakes winner and sister to Gamely S. (G1) winner Illuminant.
