{"id":439716,"date":"2025-09-21T00:23:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T00:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/439716\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T00:23:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T00:23:21","slug":"cool-kiss-pulls-off-the-upset-in-grade-3-durham-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/439716\/","title":{"rendered":"Cool Kiss pulls off the upset in Grade 3 Durham Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO, September 20, 2025 \u2013 Cool Kiss, sent off at 17-1, got up in the final jumps to win Saturday\u2019s $150,000 Durham Cup (G3) at Woodbine.<\/p>\n

Multiple graded stakes winner Paramount Prince drove to the early lead in the 1 1\/16-mile main track feature for 3-year-olds and up, with last year\u2019s Durham Cup winner Dresden Row, the even-money choice, shadowing the pacesetter to his outside into the opening turn, as Cool Kiss settled into third.<\/p>\n

Paramount Prince, the 2023 King\u2019s Plate winner for Gary Barber and Michael Langlois, held a one-length lead over Dresden Row through an opening quarter in :24.08, while Sahin Civaci, aboard Cool Kiss, kept close tabs on the frontrunning duo from in third.<\/p>\n

The lead pair continued on with their upfront battle after a half in :47.59, as Cool Kiss waited for his cue from a patient Civaci. \u200b\u00a0\u200b<\/p>\n

As the field came off the turn for home, Dresden Row took a narrow advantage over a game Paramount Prince, but Cool Kiss began to gain ground with a strong outside surge and was just over three lengths behind at the stretch call.<\/p>\n

Cool Kiss kept coming and got up to best Dresden Row by a neck for the win. Paramount Prince was a further 4 \u00bd lengths back in third and Playmea Tune was fourth.<\/p>\n

The final time was 1:42.74.<\/p>\n

\"Cool<\/a>Cool Kiss and jockey Sahin Civaci winning the Durham Cup Stakes on September 20, 2025 at Woodbine (Michael Burns Photo)<\/p>\n

It was the first stakes triumph for the graded stakes placed son of Kantharos out of the Philanthropist mare Hot Kiss, who is trained by Martin Drexler for owners Stephen Chesney and Cory Hoffman.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took a shot,\u201d said Drexler, who also sent out Classic Mo Town (fifth) and Skyro (sixth). \u201cBut this horse has not had any racing luck at all, and I always thought he could run, and I thought when he drew the one-hole that we had a very good chance of getting a good trip. So, that\u2019s kind of what it came down to and ultimately, it couldn\u2019t have set up any better. Sahin just sat there, like I told him, and the pace set up in front of him, and the whole thing worked out well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drexler claimed the dark bay gelding for $40,000 last October on behalf of Chesney and Hoffman.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Marty said, we didn\u2019t get a lot of racing luck with him,\u201d said Hoffman. \u201cAnd we thought we\u2019d take a shot in this race. And Sahin just rode a great race, and the horse was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew from the beginning that when we got post one, we gave one instruction, find a spot, stay on the rail the whole race, please, because he hasn\u2019t had one race where he\u2019s saved his ground,\u201d added Chesney. \u201cAnd today he did, and it was perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the win, Cool Kiss, bred in Ontario by Phoenix Racing, is now 4-4-1 from 23 starts.<\/p>\n

He paid $36.90 for today\u2019s win.<\/p>\n

Chris Lomon, Woodbine<\/strong><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO, September 20, 2025 \u2013 Cool Kiss, sent off at 17-1, got up in the final jumps to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-439716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-racing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115239439853816847","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439716","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=439716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}