Ron Correll
Senior columnist
Tracksideview.com

Peppers Pride remained unbeaten and stretched her North American win record to 18 straight when she took the New Mexico Cup Fillies and Mare Stakes on Sunday at Zia Park in Hobb, N.M.

The 5-year-old daughter of Desert God (Fappiano) also increased her lifetime earnings to just under a $1 million for owner Joe Allen with her three-length win in the one-mile race.

Peppers Pride grabbed the lead from leaders La Sorpresa and Look Buca Di Beppo coming off the second turn, and she never was threatened in the stretch as she stopped the timer in 1:38.31.

La Sorpresa took the field through early fractions of :24.54, :48.48 and 1:13.05 for six furlongs. Peppers Pride was sitting in either fourth or fifth through this going and moved into third as the field passed the three-eighths pole. She was just a neck back off the top two rounding the turn and took over at the quarter-pole as she made her winning move to the wire.

La Sorpresa held on for second as Silver Expression made a late charge to get into third.

Peppers Pride was coming into this race off a win on Oct. 4 in an optional-claiming race at Zia Park. In that race, she broke a record of 16 straight wins that she held with Citation, Cigar, Mister Frisky and Hallowed Dreams.

Previously to that, she hadn’t raced since April 26, but that was because of bad weather in New Mexico.  She was supposed to run in the Lincoln on July 27 at Ruidoso Downs but the race was canceled because of flooding. The race was rescheduled a month later, but she was scratched from the race because heavy rains made the track sloppy.

The mare is trained by Joel Marr and he and Allen are considering running Peppers Pride in 2009 as a 6-year-old.

Peppers Pride paid $2.80, $2.60 and $2.10. La Sorpresa returned $15 and $5.80, while Silver Expression paid $3. The $2 exacta was worth $37.70 and the $2 trifecta paid $135.