Grace Is Free romps by 10 3/4 lengths in Panthers Stakes

Grace Is Free turned the Panthers Stakes into a runaway, drawing off by 10 3/4 lengths and leaving Prairie Meadows with a filly who looks ready for a bigger stage. The 3-year-old covered one mile in 1:35.37 on a fast dirt track, and the size of the margin was the kind that changes how a horse is viewed the next time she shows up.

The $50,000 black-type stakes, Race 7 on the June 12 Prairie Meadows card, was supposed to sort out a compact group of fillies headed by a rival with plenty of local credentials. Instead, Grace Is Free, the 9/5 morning-line favorite, made the race look one-sided and paid $2.40 to win. Go to Girl finished second, Tremont Tammy was third, and the rest of the field, Song of Songs, Forbidden Lover and More Carats, were left chasing the winner after she controlled things from a comfortable position.

That matters because the Panthers was not Grace Is Free’s first stakes test, or even her first stakes win. The Dreamchaser Thorobreds homebred had already taken the Goldfinch Stakes at Prairie Meadows on May 15 and the $150,000 Mockingbird Stakes at Oaklawn Park in January, and this was her sixth start of the season. Each step has strengthened the case that she is moving quickly from useful regional filly to a more serious stakes player, especially now that she has produced a blowout instead of a photo finish.

Trainer Gene Jacquot and jockey Alex Birzer handled the assignment cleanly, and the result gave Dreamchaser Thorobreds another reason to think bigger about the summer. Tremont Tammy brought a respectable resume into the race, including a stakes-placed run at Prairie Meadows last year and a May 15 allowance victory at the track, but Grace Is Free never gave the field room to make it interesting. She was simply better, and the way she separated suggests the next jump in class may be within reach.

For Prairie Meadows, the performance fit a card that also included the Jack Bishop Stakes and Prairie Rose Stakes and came during the track’s first summer stretch of the season. For Grace Is Free, it was something more specific: a decisive, chart-clearing victory that raised her profile in the Midwest 3-year-old filly stakes picture and showed she can do more than win, she can dominate.