SARATOGA SPRINGS, New York (CMC):

Jamaican jockey Rajiv Maragh completed back-to-back stakes wins and one of his biggest added-money triumphs of the year when he captured the Go for Wand Stakes at Saratoga on Sunday afternoon.

Maragh steered the four-year-old filly Seventh Street to a narrow victory in the US$300,000 event as the 7-to-5 second favourite.

Trained by Saeed bin Suroor, Seventh Street won the 1-1/8th mile event by 1-1/2 lengths in one minute 51.01 seconds on a sloppy track, giving Maragh a remarkable 14th stakes victory so far this year.

Maragh, who had captured Saturday's Lake Luzerne Stakes, chose a wide route throughout the event while stalking the front-running 30-1 outsider Color Me Up.

Short lead

He roused Seventh Street into a short lead coming off the final bend and briefly lost the advantage in the upper-stretch to the 7-1 shot Spritely before rallying to reclaim the lead inside the final sixteenth.

"I didn't want to tangle up with the longshot outside of me," Maragh said about his decision to race wide early in the event and down the backstretch.

It was his second major triumph for Maragh astride the filly this year, having scored with her in the US$490,000 Apple Blossom Stakes at Oaklawn Park in April.

In the end, Seventh Street fought off the fast-finishing 6-5 favourite Miss Isella, who edged Spritely by a head for the runner-up spot.

"I didn't want to use her energy early. I just wanted to get her to the quarter pole with the most energy as possible. She held up fine," he said.

The win was the third biggest for Maragh this year, bettered only by Seventh Street's Apple Blossom win and the his US$400,000 victory in the Just a Game Stakes with Diamondrella at Belmont in June.

Maragh had two wins on the card and is currently joint second - on five wins - in the Saratoga Summer meet that started last Wednesday.

Alan Garcia is leading rider with eight wins.

Maragh also won the US$53,000 second race over 1-3/6th miles on turf with the six-year-old gelding My Man Lars.

A 4-1 bet in the six-horse field, My Man Lars finished strongly under Maragh to win by three-quarters of a length in 1:57.68, defeating the 8-5 favourite So It Goes with Cornelio Velasquez aboard.