Kentucky Pharoah Leads Home Coolmore-Sired Exacta In Dania Beach

American Pharoah started 2021 on a winning note Saturday when Kentucky Pharoah (3c American Pharoah x Strut The Course, by Strut The Stage) became his sire’s 13th stakes winner with a victory in the Listed Dania Beach Stakes.

Returning to the races two weeks after breaking his maiden over the same Gulfstream Park turf course by 3¾ lengths, Kentucky Pharoah showed the step up in class was no trouble in the one mile race. Breaking from the two-hole, the Calumet homebred went straight to the lead from the break and raced over a length ahead of the rest of the field throughout.

With Julien Leparoux aboard, the colt entered the stretch well in hand and easily pulled away from Air Force Blue’s Fighting Force (3c Air Force Blue x No Splits, by Smart Strike) to lead home the Coolmore-sired exacta by three lengths.

“We really put it in Kentucky Pharoah’s hands whether he could come back in two weeks,” trainer Jack Sisterson told Thoroughbred Daily News. “He’s energetic. He was either going to breeze [Sunday] at Palm Meadows, and he probably would have breezed too quick, so why not run him instead.”

Kentucky Pharoah is the first foal out of Canadian champion and multiple graded stakes winner Strut The Course. Also a half-sister to the dam of stakes-placed Bambarra Bay, Strut The Course is one of three winners from three to race out of her own dam.

American Pharoah ended last year leading all Northern Hemisphere second crop sires by Grade I winners, Grade I stakes horses, graded stakes winners, and graded stakes performers. Also the sire of last year’s European Champion 2-Year-Old, American Pharoah is the sire of 13 stakes winners and 25 stakes horses, led by two Grade I winners overall from his first two crops.