Mystic Sky, a 4-year-old son of Sky Mesa, overcame an extremely troubled trip to capture the $100,000 Soldier’s Dancer S. Saturday at Gulfstream Park in his stakes debut.
Mystic Sky is Sky Mesa’s 62nd lifetime stake winners and is one of his 10 stakes horses this year.
After a fairly uneventful start, Mystic Sky began to ease over towards the rail, but going into the first turn, jockey Luca Panici was forced about eight wide after being carried out by Piloting. Pancini reined in his mount and found his way to the rail and was last of 10 after a half-mile in :49.18.
Going into the final turn, Mystic Sky began to thread his way between horses, then briefly lost momentum when he had to go five-wide into the stretch, but re-broke late and prevailed over My Point Exactly by a neck in 1:43.42 for the 1 1/16-miles on the firm turf.
“Luca gave him an excellent ride. He rode him like a European horse. He covered him up all the way. He didn’t let him see any daylight until he turned for home and he came flying. It was wonderful,” winning trainer Phil Gleaves said.
The winner is a Vesgo Stables homebred and is now 5-2-3 in 14 starts and has earned $170,275.
