Only days after ANCHOR DOWN saw Wise Anchor finish second in a stakes, he also registered his ninth victor when Chief Cheetah won by 2 ¼ lengths in his second start.
Racing over a mile on the Delta Downs dirt, Chief Cheetah broke a step slow but that worked perfectly to give him a spot on the rail. Racing near the back of the field, Chief Cheetah swung to the outside of the pack as the field worked toward the end of the backstretch and showed off his ground eating strides to go from last to third by mid turn.
The gelding closed nearly five lengths on the leaders by midstretch and was clearly set to continue his big run as he stormed past the leaders. In the final sixteenth, Chief Cheetah continued to pull away to build up that 2 ¼ length lead for owner Sang Bae Kim and trainer Kenneth Westlye.
Selling for $100,000 as a yearling, Chief Cheetah was bred by Gainesway Thoroughbreds out of the stakes-placed Sergeant O’Rourke. The dam of three winners from her three foals of racing age, she also has a 2-year-old by ANCHOR DOWN named Usurp.
Sergeant O’Rourke is a granddaughter of Hepatica, the dam of Grade 2 winner Slew’s Tizzy, stakes winner and Grade 1-placed Slew’s Tiznow, and the granddam of Group 1 winner The Hangman and Group 2 winner and Group 1-placed Trip To Heaven.
By sire-of-sires TAPIT, Anchor Down is already the sire of three stakes performers, including two in the first 11 days of January, to put him at 15.79% stakes performers to runners. The stallion’s nine winners gives him 43.37% winner to runner strike rate that also puts him among the top second crop sires by winner percentage ahead of stallions such as Outwork, Nyquist, Frosted, Laoban, Upstart, and Speightster.