BALTIMORE, 04-21-12---Patrick A. Kelley’s Idle Talk caught In the Rough in the last jump to win the $75,000 Dahlia Stakes, a race for fillies and mares contested over the turf this afternoon at Pimlico Race Course.

Horacio Karamanos was at the controls as the spotted grey mare charged through traffic and got up to win her fourth race in a row. This was the daughter of Olmodavor’s first stakes attempt and her 6-year-old debut. The Mary Eppler trainee had competed for an $18,000 claiming tag as recently as last summer.

“She won her last three in a row”, said Eppler. “I tried to get Georganne (Pimlico racing secretary Georganne Hale) to write me a prep but she didn’t do it, but that’s okay. She’s a nice filly.”

Embracing Hearts set the pace in the one mile Dahlia and led the field into deep stretch before the others finally began to close in. In the Rough was first to get to the leader and open up on the field but Karamanos and Idle Talk furiously closed the gap and were up in time. Master Shade rallied from last to take third.

“I didn’t have the greatest trip,” Karamanos said. “There were too many horses in front of us early but there was a lot of cheap speed. At the quarter-pole they stopped but I still had to wait a little more to find some room. I got lucky. When my horse got good position coming through in the middle of the homestretch, I knew the two horse (In the Rough) opened up in the stretch, but my horse gave me a good kick. I thought we were going to get to the wire.”

Idle Talk paid $32.00 and led a $169 exacta and a $1,063.60 triple.

Eppler has won four races on the Pimlico lawn so far during the spring meeting with an average win mutuel of $17.25.