Nasa emulates sire Smarty Jones in Penn Nursery

One day after the successful test run for NASA's Orion spacecraft, the

promising two-year-old Nasa emulated his sire Smarty Jones by taking Saturday's

$100,000

Pennsylvania Nursery S. for state-breds at Parx. Although Nasa was nowhere

near as dominating as "Smarty," he conjures up memories for an additional

reason. He races for the same connections, as a Someday Farm homebred trained by

John Servis.

Nasa, a May 11 foal, was a distant second to Flagndini in their mutual debut

at Parx September 6. Coming right back to romp by 9 1/4 lengths in a September

27 maiden at Laurel, Nasa was bet down to 2-5 favoritism in the November 16

Christopher Elser Memorial back at Parx, where he rallied belatedly for third.

The slight 2-1 second choice on Saturday, Nasa broke like a rocket for

regular rider Kendrick Carmouche. The bay splashed through fractions of :22 4/5,

:46 and 1:11 1/5, opened up by 2 1/4 lengths, and completed seven furlongs on

the sloppy, sealed track in 1:24 3/5.

Instructor Kunu, a 20-1 longshot, was a clear second by 7 3/4 lengths in the

strung-out field. Nasa's old foe Flagndini, the 2-1 favorite, was never involved

and wound up eighth of nine.