No Advantage powers clear to Schaefer upset

No Advantage gave trainer Stephanie Beattie her first career stakes victory with a 2 3/4-length win in the $100,000 William Donald Schaefer Stakes (G3) at Pimlico Race Course on Saturday.
Sent off as the longest price in the field at 13.20-to-1, the four-year-old Posse colt launched a three-wide move on the turn to engage pacesetter Real Merchant (Chi). As No Advantage pulled away in midstretch, Real Merchant hung on to finish in a dead heat with Ea for second.
No Advantage completed 1 1/16 miles in 1:42.79 on a track rated as fast.
Beattie, a 38-year-old trainer based in Pennsylvania, took over No Advantage’s training in early 2009 when he was shipped east from the California barn of trainer Doug O’Neill. He entered off a fifth-place finish in the Charles Town Classic Stakes on April 18.
“This is absolutely awesome. To win a graded stakes race on the Preakness undercard is the highlight of my training career,” Beattie said. “We thought he could get the distance, even after he came up a little short in the [Charleston Classic] at Charles Town. We still believed he was a real nice colt, and now we know just how nice.”
Co-owner Joseph Besecker purchased No Advantage for $14,000 at the 2007 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale of two-year-olds in training on behalf of himself and Kirk Wycoff. California-based Suarez Racing bought into the colt following his 16¼-length debut victory at Penn National Race Course on March 12, 2008.
Winless in six races for O’Neill, No Advantage has won four of six starts since returning to the East Coast.
“It’s always good to come home,” Besecker said.
Bred in Kentucky by Viking Stud, No Advantage is out of the winning Tactical Advantage mare Prime Advantage. He has won five of 13 starts and earned $167,160.