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Hansen adds color to Saturday's Iowa Derby...
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/viewart/20120625/SPORTS/120625018/Prairie-Meadows-Hansen-adds-color-to-Saturday-s-Iowa-Derby?SportsHansen’s flair showed up long before he took his first step on the racetrack.
On the track, Hansen has displayed plenty of flair. He won the Eclipse Award in 2011 as the nation’s champion 2-year-old colt or gelding after winning all three of his starts. He romped in his first two races by a combined 25 1/2 lengths, then ground out a head victory over Union Rags in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
This year, Hansen won the Gotham Stakes in March, then was second in the Blue Grass Stakes and ninth in the Kentucky Derby. Now, he will look to get back on the winning track in Saturday’s $250,000 Iowa Derby at Prairie Meadows during the June 29-30 Iowa Festival of Racing.
Hansen will arguably be the highest-profile horse ever to race at Prairie Meadows. He is the first reigning Eclipse Award champion to race in Iowa and the third Eclipse winner overall. Caressing, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2000, was second in the 2002 Iowa Distaff. And Benny the Bull won the 2007 Iowa Sprint before being voted the nation’s champion sprinter in 2008.
