At the eighth pole the race looked like a contest between Three Echoes and Touchy, but almost without notice, Studlydoright had sneaked up along the rail, then moved into the three path under strong encouragement from Perez. That encouragement seemed to have little effect on the chestnut colt…until he hit the sixteenth pole, accelerated impressively, and hit the wire 1 3/4 lengths in front.

“I was worried,” admitted Lori Hughes, who owns Studlydoright with her husband David. “But he just turns it on.” 

“In his first race, he was way back, and then he decided to run and he did great,” said David. “He wasn’t as far back this time, then he started to run, and he did great.”

“It set up exactly like I thought it would,” said trainer John Robb, who goes by Jerry. “I just told [jockey Xavier Perez] to save ground and wait to make a late run. I was hoping he was going to be third, and he jumped up and won.”

“Everything happened like Jerry said it was going to happen,” said Perez. “The speed went and I just sat behind them and just saved all the ground like Jerry told me. When I started asking him at the five-sixteenths, he started picking up gradually. I saw [Touchy] in the stretch going everywhere and when I took my horse to the outside, he just gave me everything, just like he did the first time he ran. He was more mature this time. Today, he was focused. When he was in the gate, he was a little racy, but when he settled in, I was really confident that we were going to get the job done.”

Studlydoright came to the Tremont off just one previous race, a length-and-a-half win at Laurel Park in early May. 

The son of Nyquist was bred in Maryland by Glenangus Farm and sold for $100,000 to the Hugheses at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale. 

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“He had really clean lines, and he was just very studly,” said Lori, who named the horse. “His page was decent, too.”

He’s out of the Maryland-bred Curlin mare Peach of a Gal, a graded stakes place earner of over $110,000 for trainer Graham Motion. Peach of a Gal is a half-sister to Maryland-bred Concealed Identity, who finished second in the 2011 Pegasus Stakes (G3) at Monmouth Park and ran in that year’s Grade 1 Preakness, along with three other six-figure earners. 

[WATCH: Studlydoright wins the Tremont]

Studlydoright paid $29.80 to win and a potential next start is the listed Bashford Manor Stakes at Churchill Downs on June 30. Running time for the 5 ½ furlongs on a fast main track was 1:04.22.

It’s been a good couple of days for trainer Robb; on Wednesday, he appeared before the Maryland Racing Commission to appeal a ruling in which he believed that one of his runners should have been elevated to first.

In a six-furlong claiming race April 5, Robb saddled a pair, Dream River, who went right to the front, and Dublshotofcourage, who ran in midflight. Nearing the turn, the favorite, Paco the Taco Man, dropped down to the rail, causing Perez, who was aboard Dublshotofcourage, to take up sharply.

Dubshotofcourage, who dropped to last, ran on to finish fifth, while Paco the Taco Man went on to win the race, with Dream River finishing second.

“There was no inquiry, there was a late objection that the stewards looked at for like 10 seconds before they made it official, and the horse should have come down,” said Robb. “I had to go and prove my point.”

And prove his point he did: the Commission voted to disqualify Paco the Taco Man and place him behind the horse he fouled, a decision that elevated Dream River to first. When the win is added to Robb’s total, it will give him 11, from 38 starts, for the Laurel spring meet, tying him with Kieron Magee for the leading trainer title. 

The Hugheses own 18 horses, many of which are Maryland-bred, and they run mainly in Maryland. Before the Tremont, they had run just one horse at Saratoga, and that one finished last.

“I don’t know if I ever thought we’d win a race at Saratoga,” said David. “Now we’ve gone from worst to first, and I’m pretty pleased with this.” 

It was trainer John Robb’s idea to ship north.

“He said we should find what we have,” said Hughes, and as Robb said after the race, “Now we’ve got a stakes winner.”