Not This Time’s multiple stakes winner Ain’t Life Grand waited until the final furlong to roll past the field in Friday’s $150,000 Ouachita S. at Oaklawn Park, coming home a geared-down two-length winner in the 1 1/16-mile contest.
The race was a strategic affair from the outset, with no more than four lengths separating the six-horse field in the first half-mile. Things got even more closely contested as they rounded the second turn, with scarcely two lengths from front to back. Ain’t Life Grand, who was sixth after three-quarters of a mile, came four-wide into the stretch and hit top gear in the final furlong, surging past Frosted Grace to win in hand.
The final time on a fast track was 1:42.76.
“Our goal this summer is the Cornhusker,” trainer Kelly Von Hemel said of the meet’s major stakes for older horses at Prairie Meadows. “We’ll get up home and map out a plan. There’s a prep race at Prairie to get to the Cornhusker.”
Ain’t Life Grand races for his breeders, RPM Thoroughbreds. He has now won 7 of 12 starts and a new bankroll of $585,624. The 4-year-old now has six career stakes wins.
Not This Time is currently the top-ranked Fourth-Crop sire and is 12th nationally among all sires with over $3.5 million in progeny earnings.
