No Spin Wheels to Classic Victory

There was a time in his career when No Spin was thought to be a horse that could compete with the best thoroughbreds in the country. A Kentucky-bred who raced as a two-year-old in Grade I company, his last big race came in early 2012, when he finished fourth in the Grade III Sunland Derby. After that, with the exception of a seventh-place finish in the Arlington Derby, he’s been racing in the claiming ranks, managing to pick up a win on occasion, more often struggling just to get in the money.

Takes to Arapahoe dirt first time out

But although he’d raced at numerous tracks, he had yet to make a visit to Arapahoe Park in Colorado. All that changed on Sunday, when he made his first appearance at the Mile High track and once again found the winner’s circle, battling from the gate against 11 others to take the $100,000 Arapahoe Classic Stakes. He set the pace early to grind out a decisive 2 ¾ length victory for his second lifetime stakes score, and first in almost two years, for the biggest single payday of his racing career.

From claiming try to a stakes winner 

Picked up in a claim by trainer Kelly Kemper after a second-place effort in a race at Prairie Meadows, No Spin broke quickly at 7-1 in the Arapahoe Classic for jockey Kelly Bridges and settled on the rail for the 1 1/8 miles run on the Arapahoe dirt. Although he was pressed throughout, he never gave up his lead, and in the end finished solidly in front of Treacherous, with No It Ain’t another 1 ¾ lengths back in third. No Spin now has a record of four wins in 21 lifetime starts.