Roanan Goddess whipped past two rivals in the Searching, while Malibu Beauty set a measured pace and drew away in the Caesar’s Wish, and the two combined to give young jockey J. G. Torrealba his first two-stakes win day.

“Very happy,” Torrealba, who also won one additional race, pronounced himself afterwards.

The Searching, taken off the turf onto the main track, and Caesar’s Wish were two of the afternoon’s three stakes at Laurel Park. They were joined by the Bald Eagle Derby, also originally scheduled for the turf and moved onto the main track.

In the Searching, Roanan Goddess bided her time in fourth early, but with a dawdling pace set by the Grade 2-placed Call Another Play, the compact four-horse field was a jumble. All four were within 2 ½ lengths after an opening half-mile in 50.22 seconds.

Rounding the turn, Torrealba put Roanan Goddess, a New York-bred daughter of Leofric, in motion, and she put a head in front with a quarter to go. From there she drew off eagerly, widening her advantage to 6 ¼ lengths at the wire and completing the one-turn mile in 1:39.53 on a fast main track.

Off as the second choice, Roanan Goddess paid $5.00 to win, with post time favorite Call Another Play just nosing out Distorted d’Oro to hold second. Madame Mischief was eased across the wire to complete the order of finish.

Roanan Goddess, trained at Laurel by Hamilton Smith, now has four wins from 11 starts with earnings just shy of $220,000.

“This horse, my wife picked her out,” said David Hughes, who with his wife Lori races as Mens Grille Racing. “She just has a keen sense of picking out good horses. And I looked at the [catalog] page, this horse has no page, but she has the biggest heart and runs like nobody’s business.”

A $60,000 purchase at the May 2023 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic two-year-olds in training sale, Roanan Goddess registered her second stakes win. After a couple of turf tries with only limited impact, it looks like she has found her home back on the dirt.

And while earlier tries seemed to suggest going beyond six furlongs was pushing it, this time she gobbled up the mile.

“Earlier she didn’t have the distance, and then we tried turf with her,” Hughes said. “Looking at this, I guess she’ll stay on the dirt. I mean this, this is really impressive.”

One race later, Torrealba struck again aboard Malibu Beauty, a redoubtable six-year-old Buffum mare out of the Malibu Moon mare Slow and Steady. A homebred for Z W P Stable and Non Stop Stable, Malibu Beauty is now an 11-time winner with nearly $700,000 in the bank.

Trained by Gary Capuano, Malibu Beauty most recently won a stake on December 30, 2022. But she had won two allowance races this season, including in her most recent start at Delaware Park.

And the way the Caesar’s Wish shook out, Malibu Beauty figured to control the pace and either lead by as many as she wanted – or slow the pace down as much as she wanted. That was the plan, Torrealba said.

Malibu Beauty quickly made the front and strolled through an opening quarter-mile in a restful 25 seconds flat. Post time favorite Saddle Up Jessie, with Sheldon Russell in the saddle, turned up the pressure thereafter, and the pair of runners threw down consecutive 24-second internal quarters, reaching three quarters of a mile in 1:13.06 just heads apart but nearly a half-dozen lengths clear of the rest.

Saddle Up Jessie even put a head in front in the lane, but Malibu Beauty fought back and inched away late to win by 2 ¾ lengths in 1:45.00 for 1 1/16 miles. Saddle Up Jessie held second, well clear of show horse Evidencias. 

Lexa, Intrepid Dream, and Affirmative Lady completed the order of finish.

Malibu Beauty paid $20.80 to win, and the exacta, with the favorite underneath, returned $24.60 for a one-dollar wager.

NOTES The Bald Eagle Derby was a remarkably similar to the Caesar’s Wish, with Give It a Whirl and Jose Batista setting glacial fractions – 25.77 seconds for the opener, 51.16 for the half, and 1:15.97 for three quarters – before inching away to win by 1 ¾ lengths. Give It a Whirl is a homebred for Runnymoore Racing and is trained by Cal Lynch…

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