BALTIMORE — Randy Morse liked what he saw last November when he used $50,000 of his client Richard Bahde’s money to claim a filly named Taxed.
She proceeded not to win any of her next four races.
That changed in a big way Friday when Taxed surged past a field packed with more accomplished fillies to win the 99th running of the George E. Mitchell Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico Race Course.
Asked what he would’ve said last fall if he had been told such a victory was in the offing, Bahde joked that he would have replied: “What are you smoking?”
“That was pretty special,” said Morse, who mostly races his horses in Kentucky and Arkansas. “She’s been training so good.”
Taxed went off at 11-1 odds and sat in sixth a half mile into Friday’s $300,000 race. Morse loved her position, clear of traffic and close enough to strike. “I said to myself, ‘If you can’t do it here, you don’t have no excuse,’ ” he said.
Runner-up Hoosier Philly led for most of the race, with favored Faiza stalking in third, but Taxed left them both in her dust with a decisive move in the stretch under jockey Rafael Bejarano.
The Black-Eyed Susan has been a disappointment for favorites over the last 18 years, and that was true again Friday. Bob Baffert-trained Faiza, previously undefeated in five races, went off at 3-5 odds and appeared to be in position for a late move. But she never threatened to pass either Hoosier Philly or Taxed.
“When the running started, she did not have that kick that she usually has,” said Baffert, who will hope to do better in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes with National Treasure. “She ran a good race. She just wasn’t good enough today.”
Taxed paid $24 on a $2 bet to win, $8.80 for a $2 bet to place and $4 for a $2 bet to show. Hoosier Philly paid $7.80 and $4.20. Faiza paid $2.20.
“This is it,” Bahde said when asked to name his biggest win in a 30-year career owning horses.
Taxed only entered the Black-Eyed Susan after falling one spot short of making the May 5 Kentucky Oaks, run the day before the Kentucky Derby.
“We got lucky,” Morse said. “It’s hard to compete with these guys who go in and spend millions and millions of dollars on young horses. I’m not knocking them; I’d like to be in their position. … But I tell you, I’ve been kind of dreaming that she might run that way.”
