Barrington`s Jim Tafel has been buying high-class thoroughbreds for several years. Saturday, for the first time, he showed up in the winner`s circle with a classy homemade horse.
Til Forbid, a 3-year-old filly bred by Tafel at North Ridge Farm in Kentucky, joined the elite sorority of graded stakes winners when she struck from off the pace to score a 1 3/4-length victory in the Grade III $75,000 Arlington Oaks.
”She really has improved in her last three races,” said trainer Carl Nafzger, referring to a two-length win in an overnight race at Arlington and a second-place finish in the Grade I Alabama at Saratoga before Saturday.
It wasn`t as easy as it looked, said Arlington`s runaway jockey leader, Shane Sellers. ”Carl wanted her five lengths off the pace, and it took everything I had to keep her that far back. She finally relaxed for me up the backside at the half-mile pole. At the three-eighths pole, I knew I had the horse to win. I just needed room.”
After racing third along the rail down the backstretch, Til Forbid was taken to the outside to find the open lane Sellers sought.
Front-running Ms. Aerosmith and her prompter, Auto Dial, were found wanting in the final sixteenth. Auto Dial held on to second. Ms. Aerosmith dropped back to third in the seven-horse race.
Neither Jorge Velasquez on Auto Dial nor Kerwin Clark on Ms. Aerosmith would have done anything differently.
”She broke sharply, and I was comfortable with where she was early,”
said Velasquez. ”She responded when I asked her. I have no excuse.”
Clark said: ”I set a nice, easy pace. They let me go as slow as I wanted. I had plenty left turning for home. I was just outsprinted in the stretch.”
Til Forbid went the 1 1/8-mile route in 1:49 3/5 and returned $4.60, $2.80 and $2.40 as the 13-to-10 favorite.
The daughter of Temperence Hill-White Jasmine, by Whitesburg has retained her zest for racing this year even though she couldn`t cope with two of the finest horses in North America who also are in the 3-year-old filly division. She ran third behind Lite Light in the Kentucky Oaks and sixth to Canadian Triple Crown winner Dance Smartly in Woodbine`s Selene Stakes.
Although this was only her third victory in 13 starts, Til Forbid has finished out of the mutuel money just twice.
”She always has been a real puzzle to train,” said Nafzger. ”She trains erratically and doesn`t give you much confidence. But she runs solidly.”
In Tafel`s book, Til Forbid is in a class by herself. ”She`s always going to be special to me,” he said.
– Jockey Randall Meier is sidelined indefinitely after suffering a broken rib and a bruised kidney when he was thrown from an unraced 2-year-old during Friday morning workouts at Arlington.
