Yaupon Back to Winning Ways in Lite The Fuse

Yaupon (4c Uncle Mo x Modification, by Vindication) added a third stakes victory to his record on Sunday with a win in the Lite The Fuse Stakes at Pimlico.

Racing over six furlongs, Yaupon dueled for the lead immediately out of the gate before settling into second and pressuring the leader. Ricardo Santana Jr. asked his mount to pick it up around the turn and Yaupon pushed on to enter a three horse duel in the final quarter mile.

Yaupon had it easy after taking the lead in the final furlong as he pulled away to win by 1 ¾ lengths as a heavy favorite.

Bred by Betz, Lamantia, CoCo Equine, Magers and Burns, Yaupon was a $350,000 yearling purchase and is raced by Bill and Corinne Heiligbrodt.

Now the winner of five of his seven career starts, Yaupon took his earnings to $383,264 with the stakes victory. It was his second Pimlico stakes victory after a win in the Grade III Chick Lang last year.

“Both my wife and I were glad to see him run his race and return to form,” Bill Heiligbrodt said. “He got banged around pretty good in the Breeders’ Cup and I was a little worried about that, but today he ran like his old self. That was a really nice race, and there was some decent competition in there. We were really happy with that. He’s a really nice horse, a beautiful horse.”

Yaupon is one of two stakes performers for Grade I-placed Modification alongside multiple Grade II-placed Sawyer’s Hill. Modification is one of four stakes performers for her own stakes placed dam.

Modification has a 2-year-old filly by American Pharoah named Royal Flower and returned to Uncle Mo last year for a 2021 foal.