Echo Town Filly Easy Winner of G3 Victory Ride

Echo Sound (3f Echo Town x Eagle Sound, by Fusaichi Pegasus) visited the graded stakes winner’s circle for the second consecutive time on Thursday afternoon with a win in the Grade III Victory Ride Stakes.

Going off as the favorite in the 6 ½ furlong dirt race, Echo Sound was happy to sit just off Hollygrove once that one took the lead from her. She pressured the pacesetter from her spot before making a move halfway around the Saratoga turn.

The pair turned into the stretch head-to-head, but Hollygrove gave way soon after and Echo Sound had it sealed up from there. Given an easy ride to the line by Luis Saez, she won by a deceivingly small 4 ¼ lengths with the third placed runner nine lengths behind her.

“Beautiful trip. She is a good gate horse. She always breaks so well. Today, she broke on top, but we always wait to follow somebody and she settled perfectly. When we came to the three-eighths, I had a lot of horse. Came to the top of the stretch, she was in cruise control,” Saez said.

Trained by Rusty Arnold for Gabriel Duignan, Echo Sound has won five of her six starts with the only loss being a second-place finish to end last season.

“I’ll keep her here [to train]. She took the six and a half well, so not a big difference [to go seven furlongs for the first time]. Somewhat different, but I think she’ll take it,” Arnold said about targeting the Grade I Test as her next race.

Bred by Springhouse Farm, Vision TBs, and Bruce and Patricia Pieratt, the filly out of Eagle Sound Is a half-sister to Grade II winner Pick of the Litter and Grade II placed Deer District as one of nine winners out of her dam.

A winner herself, Eagle Sound is a half-sister to Grade II winner Wild Syn and to the granddam of Grade I winner Competitive Edge.

Echo Sound is striking at 50% winners in 2025, the second best percentage of any second crop sire with 25 or more runners this year.