Gray Attempt led all the way in the $75,000 Sugar Bowl S. Dec. 22 at Fair Grounds to score by a length in the first stakes start for the 2-year-old Graydar colt.

A top-10 Second-Crop sire by both earnings ($2.6 million) and winners (65), Graydar also is represented by six black type horses this year. His fee for 2019 at Taylor Made Stallions will by $7,500, stands and nurses.

Owned by Dwight Pruett and trained by William ‘Jinks’ Fires, Gray Attempt broke on top set fractions of 22.23, 45.90 and 57.78 while maintaining at least a one-length lead. When jockey Shaun Bridgmohan asked for more in upper stretch, his mount responded and kept Manny Wah at bay to win by one length in a time of 1:10.45 on a fast main track [WATCH RACE].

“They’re both very competitive horses,” Fires said. “He is and so was Archarcharch (Fires’ 2010 Sugar Bowl S. winner). I (think) a lot of this horse though. We were going to run him in the Springboard Mile in Oklahoma, but it’s a mile and we thought that going two turns for the first time against a group of horses like that was an awful lot to ask. We’ll hopefully run him in the Smarty Jones at Oaklawn (on January 25). It’s a mile going two turns so we’ll see where we are with that.” 

Gray Attempt has now won two of three starts and banked $94,700 for owner Dwight Pruett. Out of Attempt to Name, the Kentucky-bred is from the same family as graded stakes winners Tower of Texax, Street Sounds and Luftikus.