Clock Tower kicked off what would be a graded stakes double for Not This Time Sunday at Del Mar with his front-running score in the $100,000 Cecil B. DeMille S. (G3).
Later on the card, Sacred Wish prevailed over Gina Romantica in the Matriarch S. (G1). The duo are Not This Time’s 18th and 19th career graded stakes winners.
Clock Tower made his presence felt immediately from the break of the one-mile turf race for 2-year-olds. He was allowed to set a leisurely pace of :48.75 for the half-mile and 1:13.72 for six furlongs. After some token pressure midway in the race, Clock Tower was unthreatened the rest of the way and won by 2 ½-lengths in 1:36.78 on the firm turf.
“Beautiful, perfect trip,” Blake Heap, assistant to trainer Wesley Ward, said. “Kind of what we were hoping. There was really no speed, on paper anyway. When I saw the fractions, he almost went :49 for the half and he’s been running :47 and still hanging pretty hard. He’d been training here so good, I really liked him.”
The DeMille victory, his first in a stakes, upped Clock Tower’s record to 2-1-2 in five starts and earnings to $225,938 for owner Mrs. Fitriani Hay.
Bred by Clarkland Farm LLC, Clock Tower is out of Hot Stones, who won the Bed o’ Roses H. (G3) and has produced four winners from as many foals. Clock Tower sold for $100,000 at the 2023 Keeneland September sale.
