by Tom Kelley, publicity director, Balmoral Park

Crete, IL — This weekend’s ICF stakes action at Balmoral Park continued on Sunday (April 26) with a field of seven diagonally gaited sophomore fillies squaring off in the $8,000 Koochie Stake.

David Baum photo

Bi Polar Rose and driver Travis Seekman were never seriously threatened as they made every call a winning one in Sunday’s Koochie Stake at Balmoral.

After a nice tune-up in a conditioned event in her seasonal debut, Cynthia Demarlie and Jason Van Winkle’s Bi Polar Rose was ready and raring to go for this event as she grabbed command from the start and never looked back en route to a four length victory in 1:59 for driver Travis Seekman.

Taking advantage of post position two, Seekman hustled the daughter of Polar Winner-I Still Owe away from the gate and the filly was comfortably in front by two lengths as she rolled by an opening quarter in :30.

Allowed to have things her own way on the engine, the Ronnie Roberts trained miss proceeded to effortlessly click off middle splits of 1:00.2 and 1:30.1 while gaining confidence with each passing station.

Through the lane last year’s Lady Lincoln Land Stake winner was straight and strong, trotting home in :28.4 while under mild urging at best from Seekman. Divinely Floozy (Tim Curtin), the winner of this year’s Speedy Rodney Stake, sat in the pocket throughout but could not muster up enough to challenge the eventual winner while Meabh (Mike Oosting), who spotted the field some 16 lengths at the opening call after making a break behind the gate, rallied nicely to finish third.

A model of consistency in her first season of racing, Bi Polar Rose now sports a record 4-2-3 in 12 career starts with earnings of just over $70,000 for her connections. The third choice in a fairly wide open betting race, Bi Polar Rose returned $7.60, $4.20 and $2.80 to her backers.