Not This Time’s 3-year-old Ain’t Life Grand collect his third career stakes win on Saturday night at Prairie Meadows with a 1 ½-length win in the $300,000 Iowa Derby.
Saturday’s win was the first stakes score this year for Ain’t Life Grand, making him the eighth stakes winner of the year this season for leading Third-Crop sire Not This Time.
Ain’t Life Grand, in post 8, was well off a hot early pace, with Rome setting swift fractions of :22.71 and 46.14. On the final turn, Conagher emerged with the lead and opened up by four at the top of the stretch. Ain’t Life Grand came rolling down the center of the track to take the lead in the final sixteenth and win going away.
Ain’t Life Grand, owned by his breeder RPM Thoroughbreds, is now 4-0-2 in seven starts, with earnings of $342,343. He tallied stakes wins in the Richard Radke Memorial S. and Iowa Cradle as a 2-year-old.