No Mo Candy Wins G3 Pebble
It was a third straight victory in her stakes debut on Friday for No Mo Candy (3f Uncle Mo x Sweet, by Blame) when the Saffie Joseph Jr. trainee won the Grade III Pebbles Stakes.
The filly was happy to track the leading Macanga for the early part of the one-mile turf race under John Velazquez. That jockey kept her within pouncing distance around the track, patiently handling her into the stretch. Moved out a few paths, she was asked to take aim at the leader just outside the furlong pole and it didn’t take long for her to take over.
Kept focused throughout that final run, she won by 1 ¼ lengths to take her record to three wins in four starts for Niall Brennan and Michael Ryan.
“Into the stretch, she got head-and-head, and you could see she put a competitive mind up and when I asked her to go, she did it nicely,” Velazquez said. “First time for me to get on her I didn’t know what to expect but she was very professional to do anything I wanted to do, other than she was a little aggressive than I wanted her to be the first part of the race. I just wanted to get her settled as best I could and when I let her go out, she responded nicely.”
The Claiborn Farm-bred is one of four winners from five runners out of the winning Blame mare Sweet. Sweet is a full sister to Grade I winner Fault and half-sister to two other stakes performers out of the stakes winning Charming N Lovable. The family also includes Uncle Mo’s three-time Grade I winner Bast among others.
This is the 15th stakes winner of the year for Uncle Mo, who has 28 stakes performers led by two Grade I winners.