On a day of upsets across the country, Green Gratto‘s in the $400,000 Carter H. (G1) was the biggest. Owned by Gaston Grant and Anthony Grant, the seven-year-old repelled 9-10 favorite Unified the length of the stretch to register a 54-1 upset of the seven-furlong heat at Aqueduct by a neck.
Trained by Gaston Grant, Green Gratto was sent to the lead by Chris DeCarlo and stayed there throughout. His internal fractions of :22.56 and :45.64, with a final time of 1:23.25 over a fast track. Green Gratto paid $110. Unified finished a clear second, 1 1/4 lengths ahead of second choice Tommy Macho.
“He broke running and I was able to let him get into a good rhythm,” said DeCarlo, who was winning his first Grade 1 since piloting Wise Times in the 1986 Haskell Invitational. “I thought that they would move at me a little earlier, like midway around the turn, but when nobody was right on him, I was able to give him a breather and let him save himself. When we turned in, I still had a lot of horse and he kept on running. He tries. He keeps the same steady pace. He’s a big horse and he’s got a real long stride.”
A seven-year-old by Here’s Zealous, Green Gratto is the oldest Carter winner since Affirmed Success won it at age eight in 2002. He also led a graded stakes double for New Jersey-breds on Saturday, with Irish War Cry taking the Wood Memorial (G2) later in the card.
Second in the 2015 Carter at a huge price, Green Gratto had previously captured the 2015 Fall Highweight H. (G3) and the Toboggan (G3) on January 16, but entered this race off a seventh in the March 11 Tom Fool H. (G3). A five-time stakes winner overall, he now has earnings of $1,100,872 from a line of 53-9-9-8.
