In addition to the other accolades he’s received, as both a celebrity chef and a Thoroughbred owner, Bobby Flay can now claim that he won the first stakes race held in the United States in 2015.

The third race yesterday at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, New York, the Affectionately Stakes is a minor event on the racing calendar, ungraded and carrying a purse of $100,000, but it kicked off the year’s stakes racing in dramatic fashion. Racing so far back that she wasn’t visible on the screen, Flay’s four-year-old filly America charged from last to first under jockey Junior Alvarado to eke out a nose victory in the nine-furlong ( 1 1/16 miles) contest.

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Image courtesy of NYRA/Adam Coglianese