Meilani wins Alywow stakes to boost Canadian sprint credentials

Meilani turned a sharp early duel into her first career stakes victory at Woodbine, running down Happy Destination to win the $100,000 Alywow Stakes by half a length in 1:18.17 over fast all-weather. The 3-year-old filly gave trainer Kevin Attard and owners X-Men Racing V LLC and Madaket Stables a timely summer stakes hit in the kind of race that can sort out the better sprint fillies from the rest.

Happy Destination broke sharply from post 5 and set the early pace through a quarter in 22.62 and a half in 45.69, and the Alywow’s 10-runner field gave the race the look of a legitimate test rather than a soft spot. Flowerhead was 2½ lengths back in third, with the rest of the field including Stroke of Genius, So Kate, Slippers, Kingsolver, Wooten Warrior, Mony Mony and Angel’s Prospect. The final order mattered because Meilani had to make her move against real speed, not a crawl.

Kazushi Kimura was aboard for the first time, and Woodbine said Meilani sat in second behind Happy Destination through the early stages before wearing down the pacesetter late. That kind of trip matters in a turf-sprint division where position and timing often decide everything. Meilani returned $7.40 to win, a fair price for a filly who was not handed the race and still finished the job.

The win also sharpened the case for Meilani as a serious player in the Canadian sprint picture. She is by Omaha Beach out of Tide Is High, by Broken Vow, and that pedigree fits a filly who can carry speed and keep digging when the pressure comes. Omaha Beach has already become a useful source of quality runners, and Meilani’s performance on Woodbine’s synthetic surface suggests she can turn raw ability into black-type results at this distance.

Attard’s barn keeps finding ways to stay relevant in these summer sprint races, and this one gave him a fourth winner on the Woodbine card. Meilani had already been pointed to the Alywow off her Ruling Angel Stakes effort, and this result backs up that earlier promise with a stakes win that looks earned, not gifted. BloodHorse noted the 6½-furlong all-weather distance carries a track-record benchmark of 1:14.44, which puts Meilani’s 1:18.17 in perspective: she was nowhere near the record, but she was fast enough, and more importantly, tough enough, to graduate into the upper tier of the filly sprint division.