Claimed by new connections less than a month ago, Rachel’s Temper got things off on the right foot by winning Monday’s $100,000 Summer Colony Stakes at Saratoga. The 5-year-old daughter of Flatter came from twelve lengths off of the very fast pace for jockey Joel Rosario and made her move at the top of the stretch to take her first career stakes victory. She finished 2nd by a nose in her last race and prior to that won an optional claiming race at Belmont on June 9.

Winning trainer Charlton Baker said that the race pace set up perfectly as did the fact that jockey Rosario was already familiar with her: “It set up pretty good for her, but she’s a nice filly. Rosario knows her; he did what he wanted to do. He’s ridden her a couple of times, and she was always there [for him].” Rosario concurred about the favorable pace: “I was happy about it [the pace]. I just tried taking my time and she handled it well. She was back, but she’s always honest. She tries hard, and I had a lot of confidence in her. It was a good race for her today.”

Baker said she was working so well they decided to give her a shot in a stakes race rather than put her back in another claiming event: “I always thought she was a nice filly, I always liked her, and when I saw her in for a claiming price I took her. We trained her with the intention of putting her back for the same price. But she was training so well that when the nominations came up for this race, I thought let’s take a chance and put her in and see what the field came up like. And I guess it came up to her liking the way she ran.”

Rachel’s Temper went off as a 3-1 choice and paid $8.40 to improve her career earnings to $371,905. After breaking her maiden in her 15th career start, her record now stands at 6-6-5. Tiger Ride finished second ahead of third place SweetGrass by a single length. The even money race favorite was Eskenformoney who could do no better than fourth.