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Not all of this week’s Sean Avery news is bad: Namesake horse wins Vanderbilt Handicap

Longfellows Stakes Horse Racing

This photo released by Equi-Photo shows Sean Avery, with Joe Bravo riding, scoring an 11 3/4 length victory in the $75,000 Longfellow Stakes at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J. on Sunday June 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Equi-Photo, Bill Denver)

AP

It’s been a rough week for Sean Avery, even if he seems confident that it will all work out. After making positive waves for standing up for gay rights, questions about racism arose recently and then he had that run-in with (to use Avery’s words) “fat little pigs.”

Yup, things have been pretty bad for Sean Avery ... the hockey player. The same can’t be said of a thoroughbred horse who bares the same name. Jockey Joe Bravo rode the horse to a first place finish in the $250K Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap today. Avery edged Trappe Shot to produce what Jack Shinar of Bloodhorse.com called a “17-1 stunner.” To make that number more digestible for you non-gambling types, he faced the second longest odds of the eight horses in that race. (Bloodhorse includes video of the race, if you’re ... really bored.)

Here are a few more details from the race from Shinar.

With their respective jockeys working frantically, the two exchanged head bobs in the final strides with Sean Avery getting the nod. Final time on a track rated “good” was 1:09.71.

Calibrachoa, always within striking distance for Javier Castellano, finished 1 3/4 lengths farther back in third.


(No word regarding whether or not Avery moved his tail in a windshield wiper-like pattern to frustrate Trappe Shot.)

Apparently Avery is on quite the hot streak in 2011. Shinar reports that the horse won four of his five races so far, with his only defeat coming at the Mr. Prospector Stakes at Monmouth on July 4. We’ll leave you with Shinar’s synposis of Avery’s racing career so far.

In his only previous graded stakes try, Sean Avery finished sixth in the Fall Highweight Handicap (gr. III) at Aqueduct in November 2009. Sean Avery earned $150,000 for the victory, his sixth in 10 starts, boosting his career total to $338,180.