Final Score goes all the way in With Anticipation

One day after unbeaten filly Time to Dream dominated the P.G. Johnson S., stablemate Final Score made it a juvenile turf stakes double for Repole Stable and trainer Todd Pletcher in Thursday’s $175,000 With Anticipation (G3) at Saratoga. 

Both by the outstanding sire Not This Time, the two were purchased here at Fasig-Tipton’s boutique Saratoga yearling sale last August. Final Score brought $600,000 as Hip No. 119, and Time to Dream sold for $750,000 as Hip 209.

Their margins were almost the same in their respective stakes victories. Time to Dream romped by five lengths, and Final Score stretched 4 1/2 lengths clear.

But their style and odds were quite different. While Time to Dream went last to first as the odds-on favorite, Final Score pulled a 9.30-1 upset in wire-to-wire fashion. 

The discrepancy in price wasn’t only because Time to Dream was coming off a sensational, trouble-defying debut, and Final Score had taken two tries to break his maiden. In the With Anticipation, Final Score was facing one of the most eye-catching debut winners of the meet in Capital Partner.

Considering how Capital Partner flew late off a modest pace in his premiere, bettors expected the Chad Brown pupil to repeat the feat over the same 1 1/16-mile circuit on the inner turf here. Yet the 0.65-1 favorite was dealing with a tougher frontrunner in Final Score.

Under a well-judged ride by Kendrick Carmouche, Final Score broke on top from his rail post and doled out fractions of :24.53, :48.63, and 1:12.27 on the firm course. Capital Partner, who got off to a much cleaner start this time, tracked in second most of the way. 

When Capital Partner tried to challenge at the top of the stretch, Final Score outkicked him and drew off. The bay quickened his final sixteenth in :5.99 to cross the wire in 1:41.75. Time to Dream had clocked 1:43.68 in the P.G. Johnson on Wednesday, thanks to an early pace that slowed to 1:14 by the six-furlong split.

Heeere’s Johnny, runner-up to Final Score in his Aug. 10 maiden coup, rallied to play second fiddle again. Capital Partner flattened out to third, another 1 1/4 lengths back. Next came Dr. Agne, a son of champion turf female Lady Eli, Gloves Off, and Strategic Risk. Caroline St. Beat and One More Freud were scratched. 

Final Score paid $20.60 while advancing his resume to 3-2-1-0, $171,250. Second in a 5 1/2-furlong off-the-turf maiden in his July 13 unveiling at the Spa, the dark bay relished going two turns on the lawn last time. He stole that course-and-distance maiden on the front end, in a more slowly-run harbinger of his With Anticipation display.

“We were coming off a race where we went pretty slow on the front end,” Pletcher said, “so we didn't want to send him (in the With Anticipation), but if it was there for the taking, that was 'Plan A'.”

Carmouche complimented Final Score for engineering his own trip.

“I just rode him away from there (the gate). It looked like breaking from the one hole, that's where we should've been,” Carmouche said. “I'm glad he broke sharp and put me in a good position. After that, the horse did the rest. I just had to point him to the winner's circle. That's all I had to do.”

Final Score, who gave Pletcher a record-extending seventh win in the With Anticipation, has run himself into the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (G1) picture. His “Win and You’re In” options include the Oct. 3 Pilgrim (G2) at Aqueduct and the Oct. 5 Bourbon (G2) at Keeneland.

Bred by BG Stables in Kentucky, Final Score is out of Precious Kate, a daughter of Bernardini and Grade 2-winning turfiste Princess Haya. Precious Kate is a full sister to Lady Kate, a Grade 1-placed stakes winner on dirt, and a half-sister to Group/graded stakes performers on turf and dirt. 

Final Score could also inherit surface versatility from sire Not This Time. 

"He's a super-hot stallion,” Pletcher said of Not This Time, describing him as “phenomenal” and lauding his progeny’s versatility.

“They seem to do everything: sprint, route, turf, dirt…We were fortunate to have success with Up to the Mark (the 2023 champion turf male by Not This Time) early on, and we became fans of him early on. Fortunate to have ones like these two we ran yesterday and today.”