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RUIDOSO DOWNS
Rio Grande Senorita TB Futurity (R)
Marking
Bernardini
Seventh Street
Lookin Better
Lookin At Lucky
Better Again
BETTER BELIEVE
who won two listed stakes in 1991, including the Transylvania Stakes at Keeneland Racecourse.
Better Believe has won three of four
starts, and the $64,392 winner’s share of the Senorita Futurity purse pushed her bankroll
to $106,592. Her spring resume includes a second-place finish, two lengths behind winner Nostrangrtotherain, in the 4 1/2-furlong, $100,000 C.O. “Ken” Kendrick Memorial Stakes (R) at SunRay Park on May 8.
Atillas Angel finished third, 13 1/2 lengths behind Better Believe. Doer Not A Faker, Pretty Peppy, Bye Bye Brooky, Bryns Mark, Mama Was A Rocket, Stormy Dame and Ladies Sister completed the order of finish.
Runner-up Sheza Hailstorm earned $25,757 to bring her bankroll to $26,957 from two outs. The homebred bay daughter of the Forest Wildcat stallion Attila’s Storm races for S & G Racing LLC.
Atillas Angel is a bay daughter of Attila’s Storm campaigned by Joe Dee Brooks and
R. Lee Lewis. A half-sister to three-time New Mexico-bred stakes winner Hollywood Henry, the filly pocketed the $15,454 third-place share of the Senorita Futurity purse to bring her earnings to $15,634 from two starts.
Better Believe, a homebred daughter of Marking campaigned by R. Lee Lewis and Brad E. King, earned her first career stakes win in the August 14, $128,784 Rio Grande Senorita Futurity (R) for New Mexico-bred 2-year-old fillies at Ruidoso Downs.
Ridden by Richard Eramia, Better Believe covered 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:03.66, and her margin of victory was 2 1/4 lengths from Sheza Hailstorm. Todd Fincher trained the bay filly.
Better Believe made her local debut with
a wire-to-wire, nine-length win in the second of two Senorita Futurity trials on July 29. The filly became the fifth black-type stakes winner from three crops sired by Marking, a 10-year- old Kentucky-bred son of the A.P. Indy stallion Bernardini. Racing in the U.S. and Dubai from 2015-16, Marking earned $426,200 from eight starts, and his record included a second-place finish in Runhappy’s 2015 Malibu Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita Park.
Marking has sired 30 winners and the earners of more than $2.1 million from 54 starters, including multiple stakes winner Slammed and stakes winners Delbert Too and Mark’s Warrior. The stallion is owned by Fred Alexander and Todd Fincher, and he stands for
a $4,000 fee at Fred and Linda Alexander’s A & A Ranch at Anthony, New Mexico.
Better Believe is also one of two winners from as many starters foaled by Lookin Better, an unraced homebred 8-year-old daughter of 2010 Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Lookin
At Lucky. The filly is a full sister to 2021 Mountain Top Futurity (R) winner Marked.
Better Believe’s second dam, Better Again, is a winning homebred daughter of 1995 Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Thunder Gulch. The filly’s third dam, the stakes-winning Unbridled mare Scenic Point, ran third in
the 1997 Long Island Handicap (G2) at Aqueduct. A 1993 Kentucky-bred foal, Scenic Point produced four winners from six starters, including Better Now, a full sister to Better Again who won the 2005 Tempted Stakes (G3) at Belmont Park.
Better Believe traces back to her fourth dam, Bangkok, an unraced daughter of Riverman who foaled a total of three stakes winners, including River Squall, a half-brother to Scenic Point who won two Grade 3 stakes in 1997, including the $200,000 Hawthorne Derby (G3) at Hawthorne Racecourse near Chicago, and Eastern Dude, a half-brother to Scenic Point
FALL 2022 75
Bailey Ivey, Ruidoso Downs