Longshot Relaxed Gesture, ridden by Corey Nakatani, exploded with a stunning 7- wide move in early stretch and went on to a 4 1/2 length victory over 14-1 outsider Meteor Storm, in the Grade 1, $2 million Pattison Canadian International, Canada's richest horse race on Sunday at Woodbine.
Ninth throughout most of the 1 1/2 mile turf classic, Relaxed Gesture got into gear going around the far turn, as pacesetters King's Drama and Yeats began to falter after a mile, which was reached in 1:39.25. Suddenly, it was Meteor Storm and jockey Javier Castellano who took over and opened several lengths on the field with just a 1/4 mile to go down the long E.P. Taylor Turf Course stretch. However, Nakatani had Relaxed Gesture rolling and almost effortlessly, he seized the front in mid-stretch, cantering to the wire in 2:32.64, over a yielding course. Meanwhile, favored Electrocutionist, who had been positioned in eighth for most of the race, was brought out for the stretch drive by jockey Mick Kinane, battling alongside Grey Swallow and rider Pat Smullen.
Grey Swallow wound up third, just a neck behind Meteor Storm, and 1 1/4 lengths in front of Electrocutionist. However, there was an inquiry after the race involving the third and fourth place finishers. Eventually, the stewards ruled that Smullen's whip had inadvertently struck Electrocutionist during the stretch run and thus reversed the order, placing Electrocutionist third, Grey Swallow fourth.
Trained by Christophe Clement, Relaxed Gesture, a four-year-old Irish-bred son of Indian Ridge, picked a perfect time to win his first Grade 1 event, after having been second three times and third once in his last four outings in New York, three of them Grade 1 contests. The chestnut came into the Pattison off a third-place finish, 3/4 length behind Better Talk Now and Pattison rival King's Drama, in the September 10 Man O' War at Belmont Park. Today, the hard-knocker relaxed and finally grabbed some Grade 1 gold. He also did it by the third-largest winning margin in the race's history, behind only Secretariat's 6 1/2 length tally in 1973 and Husband's 5 length romp in 1993. Bred and owned by Moyglare Stud, Relaxed Gesture became the fourth consecutive Irish-bred (and ninth overall) to win the International, following on the heels of Sulamani (2004), Phoenix Reach (2003) and Ballingarry (2002).
"He handled (the turf course) very well," said Nakatani, who enjoyed a tremendous day at Woodbine, after also winning the $500,000 Nearctic Stakes earlier in the card aboard Steel Light, also trained by Clement. "Last time at Belmont (the Man O'War), we tried a little different strategy (up on the pace). My main concern today was just to get him to relax and make sure he had a big kick. And he did. He was much the best today."
"I like to be cold and I like to be wet," joked Clement, about his decision to run in the Pattison rather than the Breeders' Cup Turf. "We thought we had a better chance to win here. He (Nakatani) relaxed him early on. As long as you've got a horse relaxed early on, on softer turf, usually they always finish. He's a good horse."
Relaxed Gesture, who has only finished worse than third once in 12 lifetime outings (in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile on the dirt in 2003), earned $1.2 million for the biggest victory of his career, pushing his bankroll to $1,591.450.
