Salutos Amigos takes fourth straight stakes in Tom Fool

Southern Equine Stable LLC and trainer David Jacobson's Salutos Amigos

(Salute the Sarge) entered Saturday's $200,000

Tom Fool

H. (G3) seeking his fourth straight stakes victory and easily accomplished

that task under jockey Cornelio Velasquez.

"This is a special race," Jacobson stated. "Very impressive, with all the

training that he missed, and to run the way he did. Dads Caps really looked

great in the paddock, I was worried after I saw him.

"We'll see where we go for here. We were really concentrating on this race,

and now that we have this one behind us now I will take (the $2 million Dubai

Golden Shaheen [UAE-G1]) a lot more serious. After today, he proved that he is a

special horse."

The bay gelding settled into a stalking third spot just behind dueling

pacesetters Dads Caps (Discreet Cat) and Green Gratto (Here's Zealous) through

splits of :23 2/5 and :46 1/5. Velasquez let out a notch on his mount entering

the turn and Salutos Amigos ranged up on the outside to run in tandem with his

two rivals entering the lane before easily pulling away in the stretch.

"My horse broke on top, and if I let him go he could have gone wire-to-wire.

I wanted to cover him up behind horses because he is more relaxed," Velasquez

explained. "At the top of the stretch, when I put him in the clear, I had a lot

of horse. He won easy today. It was an easy race for him."