{"id":241887,"date":"2025-07-06T05:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T05:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/241887\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T05:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T05:14:09","slug":"fionn-pulls-off-belmont-oaks-invitational-upset-at-july-4th-racing-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/241887\/","title":{"rendered":"Fionn pulls off Belmont Oaks Invitational upset at July 4th Racing Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saratoga Springs, NY (WRGB) \u2014 The third day of Saratoga\u2019s July Fourth Racing Festival delivered an upset in its featured event, the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational.<\/p>\n<p>Fionn, a daughter of Twirling Candy, surged from behind in the final stretch to defeat heavy favorite Nitrogen and Opulent Restraint in a thrilling finish. Ridden by Flavien Prat, Fionn edged past the top two fillies in the closing strides to take the $500,000 race \u2014 her first Grade 1 victory.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;First thought was, well, grade one placing, that&#8217;s a plus,&#8221; trainer Brad Cox said after the race. &#8220;And then I thought, she&#8217;s coming \u2014 and she obviously got there&#8230; this win is huge.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Fionn completed the 1 1\/8-mile turf race in a course record time of 1:44.84.<\/p>\n<p>Nitrogen, the 4-5 favorite entering the race, finished second, while Opulent Restraint settled for third.<\/p>\n<p>Seven fillies competed in the Belmont Oaks, all seeking their first Grade 1 win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saratoga Springs, NY (WRGB) \u2014 The third day of Saratoga\u2019s July Fourth Racing Festival delivered an upset in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[94031,20344,94030,88021,94033,94032,94034,94035,1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-241887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-belmont-oaks","9":"tag-brad-cox","10":"tag-fionn","11":"tag-flavien-prat","12":"tag-grade-1","13":"tag-july-4th-racing-festival","14":"tag-nitrogen","15":"tag-opulent-restraint","16":"tag-racing","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114804586372347584","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}