By the time Thoroughbred racehorses reach true maturity, between ages 5 and 7, the best of them nearly all have been retired for breeding. Rare is the racehorse whose full flowering coincides with complete maturation, but West Will Power is such a horse.  West Will Power didn’t debut until September of his 3-year-old year, and it was not until July 1 of his 6-year-old season, Saturday at Ellis Park, that the horse became a Grade 1 winner. Contesting a strong pace from the start, West Will Power put away his speed rivals and held clear a late run from Rattle N Roll to win the $1 million Stephen Foster by a half-length. “It’s taken a while to get him to the Grade 1 level,” trainer Brad Cox said. Cox took over West Will Power’s training for his breeders, Gary and Mary West, after the horse had made nine starts on the East Coast for trainer Kelly Breen. Relatively fast from the start of his career, West Will Power had hit a high-water mark finishing second in the Grade 3 Iselin during the summer of 2021. He has gotten far faster for Cox. Second in his Grade 1 debut last fall, the Clark Stakes at Churchill, West Will Power put up a Grade 1-class Beyer Speed Figure of 109 winning the March 25 New Orleans Classic by almost five lengths over high-class Art Collector. Saturday was comparable. “I thought this race was equally good,” Cox said. :: Get ready for summer racing with a DRF Formulator Quarterly PP plan West Will Power had gone from the New Orleans Classic over 1 1/8 miles, where he got an outside pressing trip, to the Alysheba on Derby Day at Churchill, where he tussled for the lead and was no match late for comfortable winner Smile Happy. Cox said this past week he preferred 1 1/8 miles and a target for West Will Power, and that is what he got. Stilleto Boy broke like a rocket in this 1 1/8-mile contest, the first Grade 1 ever run at Ellis, but his clear lead quickly evaporated as Speed Bias was sent hard to make the front. Kent Desormeaux on Stilleto Boy wanted no part of an inside speed duel and took back, Speed Bias going clear, West Will Power coming up to stalk from second, and Stilleto Boy settling behind those two. Off a 23.74-second quarter, the half mile went in a fast 46.97, West Will Power letting Speed Bias tow him into and around the far turn. “He was travelling well. It seems like he was cruising all the way around there,” said Flavien Prat, who was riding West Will Power for the third time in a row. Between the five-sixteenths and the quarter pole, Prat, who knew he had Speed Bias whenever he wanted him, let West Will Power edge alongside the leader, and at the head of the homestretch, West Will Power opened a lead. Everyone else close to the pace flagging through the final furlong, West Will Power stayed on stoutly. He clocked 1:47.93 over a fast track, earning a 102 Beyer Speed Figure, and paying $6.14 to win as the favorite.  Rattle N Roll, coming off a trio of Grade 3 wins, raced second-to-last in the early going, followed his stablemate Smile Happy around the far turn, tipped wide, and made a solid run to nab second in what likely was a career-best for him. Happy American, a 48-1 shot, raced a distant last for six furlongs before launching a strong sustained inside rally that carried him to third, 1 1/2 lengths behind Rattle N Roll.  That the horses racing second-last and last down the backstretch finished second and third shows the toll the pace took on every horse not named West Will Power. :: Take your handicapping to the next level and play with FREE DRF Past Performances - Formulator or Classic.  Smile Happy, so impressive in the Alysheba, probably lost the race before the start. Trainer Kenny McPeek has said Smile Happy at times during morning training refuses to go forward, and that happened during the Foster warm-up period. Outriders prodding him, Smile Happy walked backward an eighth of a mile up the track to get to the starting gate. He had position to the quarter pole but no punch, checking in fifth behind an even-paced Last Samurai. Stilleto Boy faded to sixth, with Speed Bias tiring to seventh and Proxy, checked on the first turn but ineffective thereafter, last of eight. West Will Power is by Bernardini out of Wild Promises, by Wild Event. The Foster was a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race, and West Will Power now has automatic fees-paid entry into the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita.  “I think he can handle the mile and a quarter,” Cox said. By November of his 6-year-old season, who knows how good this horse might be. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.