Hirapour showed his class today, Nov. 21, by running a beautiful race, solidly defeating Preemptive Strike, Sur La Tete and McDynamo in the $100,000 Colonial Cup grade I hurdle stakes, Camden, S.C.–a win that pushed him into the spotlight of leading contender for this year’s Eclipse Award honors.

Given a tactically superb ride by Matt McCarron, the Irish-bred gelding defeated six of the best horses in the country and got his revenge on McDynamo, to whom he finished second to in the Breeders’ Cup Steeplechase in October.

Preemptive Strike went to the lead at flag fall and jockey Robbie Walsh let the chestnut gelding’s enormous stride just carry them along. They opened up 5- to 10-length lead and almost stole the race on the front-end. The other jockeys were content to let Preemptive Strike set the pace, but as they turned down the backside of the course for the last time, instead of coming back to them, Preemptive Strike increased his advantage.

Suddenly the field picked up the pace and started to run down the chestnut with Sur La Tete (Chris Read) being the first to make his challenge known. As they rounded the turn for home, Craig Thornton urged McDynamo after the two lead horses, taking his mount to the outside to make his challenge. They swept down to the second last fence. Sur La Tete jumped first, with Preemptive Strike right on his heels and McDynamo to his right. McCarron had Hirapour on the inside, in fourth place, patiently waiting to make his bid for the lead.

The four rode furiously to the last fence, Preemptive Strike showing true courage as he regained the lead to jump first. But McCarron was uncanny in his perfect timing and he didn’t ask his horse to really run until he landed after the last fence. When he did, it was all over. Hirapour turned on the speed, gave his heart to his jockey and they stormed home, passing Preemptive Strike right before the wire. Sur La Tete held on for third and McDynamo, who was heavily favored to win, finished fourth.

“He gave me just an unbelievable last fence,” said McCarron, who also clinched this year’s leading rider title. “He is one of the most courageous and hard-working horses I’ve ever sat on. When I asked him to go, he didn’t hesitate and he was legless tired when we pulled up. He’s just so honest.” McCarron said that it really helped him, that Sur La Tete and McDynamo did all the hard work of chasing down Preemptive Strike. “I just kept to the inside to save ground and let them do all the running,” he said.

Winning the race, clinching the jockey, races-won title and getting to ride a horse with quality like Hirapour is “all a little surreal” for McCarron. This is his best year ever as a jockey and he’s been riding for 15 years.

When McCarron started riding over fences, Remy Winants was just 1, but today, the 16-year-old won her first race riding under National Steeplechase Association sanctioned rules. She guided Jonathan Sheppard’s Seven Veils to take the amateur/apprentice jockey maiden-claiming hurdle. Seven Veils is by Turkoman and was the only mare in the race. Winants then went on to finish second in the maiden hurdle on her own Why Not Baby. Her mother, Lilith Boucher, trains Why Not Baby and also the winner of that race, Class Sprite (Jody Petty).

Lee McKinney’s classy, wonderful mare, Feeling So Pretty, took the filly & mare hurdle stakes with Michael Traurig in the irons and amateur rider Stewart Strawbridge snatched a win away from professional jockey Foley, by winning the timber allowance by a whisker on Pleasant Parcel.

Foley made up for losing to an amateur by taking the starter allowance on Indispensable.