FAIRPLEX : Favorite Defeated in Feature

When she’s right, Southern Truce is a match for any horse in the nation, as she proved two years ago with a victory over Paseana at Santa Anita.

But there are also dark days, like Aug. 21 at Ellis Park in Kentucky, where she finished seventh as the 2-1 favorite.

It was later discovered that Southern Truce had an excuse for that dismal showing. She developed an illness during shipping.

There was no apparent excuse Saturday at Fairplex Park, where odds-on favorite Southern Truce hooked up in a speed duel with Steff Graff and both were run down by Fantastic Kim, who won the $50,000 E.B. Johnston Stakes by three lengths.

When it was over, Southern Truce’s trainer, Roger Stein, found plenty of excuses. He was fuming at his jockey, David Flores, and also at Steff Graff’s trainer, Jude T. Feld, and jockey Brian Edie.

“What’s a horse like that even doing in a race like this?” Stein said. “You don’t send a 24-1 shot out there with a class horse. That’s why bettors get mad out there. Those kind of horses don’t belong on the same track with good ones.”

Stein was mad at Flores because he didn’t want Southern Truce on the lead early in the race.

“I rode the horse the way I thought I had to,” Flores said.

Flores took Southern Truce to the lead in the 1 1/16-mile race and was challenged by Steff Graff and Certam De May. Southern Truce finally took command briefly after two turns, but Fantastic Kim, ridden by Joey Castro, was in perfect position to make a move.

That move came nearing the far turn and by the time the horses hit the top of the stretch, the only question was the final margin of victory.

Horse Racing Notes

Lifebuoy, a 3-year-old, collapsed shortly after the finish of the second, a four-furlong race for Appaloosas. He got up under his own power and was taken away in a van to be examined. Jockey Brian Long, who pulled the horse up when he noticed it was bleeding, was uninjured and rode in the next race. . . . Aquiles, ridden by Cornilio Velasquez, won the 1 1/8-mile Panama Premio in Panama City, where Laffit Pincay Jr. was being honored. Pincay’s mount in the race, Patricio, finished out of the money.