Gold Square LLC’s Drum Roll Please took command with a furlong to run and drew off to post a three-and-three-quarter length victory in the $150,000 Jerome Stakes at Aqueduct on Saturday, 6 January.
It was the first Stakes win for the sophomore son of Hard Spun, who entered the race off a third-place finish to Dornoch in the G2 Remsen Stakes. The Jerome victory also earned Drum Roll Please 10 points toward a potential start in the G1 Kentucky Derby.
Drum Roll Please, who broke from the rail, got bumped by rival Khanate, who had stumbled inward when breaking from the starting gate. Jockey Javier Castellano was content to settle Drum Roll Please at the back of the compact field of five early, as El Grande O and Regalo set the pace.
Drum Roll Please raced four wide through the far turn and was angled wider still for the stretch run as El Grande O clung to a narrow lead at the stretch call. Drum Roll Please took command with an eighth of a mile to run and drew away to score comfortably over El Grande O, with Khanate hanging on for third.
Bred in Pennsylvania by Barlar LLC, Drum Roll Please was purchased for $250,000 at the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling sale. The chestnut colt is out of the multiple Stakes-winning E Dubai mare, Imply, and extends from the female family of Horse of the Year and former Darley stallion, Holy Bull.
Drum Roll Please becomes the 102nd Stakes winner for his sire, Hard Spun, who was represented by such Stakes winners as Bold Journey, Two Phil’s, Loyalty and Spun Glass in 2023.
Hard Spun will stand the 2024 breeding season at Jonabell Farm for $35,000, stands and nurses.
