The great NORTHERN DANCER was honoured at the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame ceremony on Thursday night in Mississauga. A lengthy film was shown and his foal papers and catalogue pages were on display. The painting sold for $2,400 at the live auction. Terence Dulay/horse-races.net photo
IT’S A LIGHT STAKES SCHEDULE AT WOODBINE THIS WEEKEND with a series of unsual little turf races, the biggest story of the week is certainly INGLORIOUS’s attempt at …well, glory, in the ALABAMA – the Canadian/Ontario bred has a 99 Beyer Figure from her last race and is in the hunt, check the TORONTO STAR for coverage..also the CANADIAN DERBY is set to go at Northlands Park tonight…
GLORY IN SARATOGA
There are only 6 horses in the Grade 1, 1 1/4 mile ALABAMA, but 5 of them are tigresses. 4 of them have won graded stakes this season.
IT’S TRICKY, PLUM PRETTY and ST. JOHN’S ROAD are ultra tough from on or off the pace, and a possible slow pace may work against the strtech running INGLORIOUS.
(Did you notice that the Queen’s Plate winning Beyer Figure was hiked again from 91 to 96 to now, 99).
All of Canada will be cheering for the filly to do us proud.
TORONTO STAR FEATURE:
http://www.thestar.com/sports/horseracing/article/1042300–inglorious-seeks-glory-at-saratoga
ALABAMA STUFF..
2) The Alabama, run for the first time in 1872, is the longest running stakes race for 3-year-old fillies in the United States. It has been run continuously since 1913. It was not run from 1893-1896 and 1898-1900 when the crooked bookmaker Gottfried Walbaum owned Saratoga. It also did not run in 1911 and 1912 when all of New York racing was closed due to a gambling ban.
3) The race is named in honor of Confederate Captain William Cottrill who was heavily involved with thoroughbred racing and breeding before and after his service in the Civil War. When approached by the Saratoga Association in 1872 about having a race named in his honor, he declined and requested the race instead be named for his home state of Alabama.
CANADIAN DERBY, field of 12, bettors dream
LINE CHANGE, INHISGLORY, FREEDOM’S TRAVELER and the filly EMBELLISHED are among the main players in the 1 3/8 mile race today…
FAME GAME
Hall of Fame Inductions night
A number of influential names in the thoroughbred and standardbred industry were be forever placed in the elite group known as the CANADIAN HORSE RACING HALL OF FAME Thursday night in Mississuaga.
The evening begins early, 5:30 – and can be a long one, but it is a time for industry members to celebrate some of the more recent players in the sports.
There was a distinct red-and-gold flavour to festivities as SAM-SON FARMS’ were front and centre.
Tammy Samuel-Balaz, Builder 2011, was inducted 3 years after her passing. She ran the Sam-Son Farms after her father Ernie passed away and steered the farm to new heights.
A Toronto native, Tammy Samuel-Balaz found managing her family’s Sam-Son Farm breeding and racing operation to be more than just a job. “I manage the horse operation because it is what I truly love,” she said before her death on January 5, 2008. She was 47.
That labor of love was at the heart of the outfit’s success during the time she was in charge. Under her direction as president and general manager, Sam-Son maintained a position as one of North America’s premier operations. Tammy’s late father, Ernie Samuel, started the Sam-Son racing operation in 1972. She took charge following his death in May, 2000. Her racing responsibilities didn’t end there. She served as a director of Woodbine Entertainment Group; was a member of The Jockey Club of Canada and the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association.
Tammy was an unabashed ambassador for Canadian horse racing, extolling its quality wherever and whenever she could. She seized every opportunity to highlight Canadian accomplishments and greatly valued the respect given to Sam-Son horses.
Rick Balaz (second from right), son Michael and daughter Lisa accept Tammy’s Hall of Fame ring from Glenn Sikura.
Dancethruthedawn – a Sam-Son homebred, won $1.6 million during her career, winning seven of 16 races with two seconds and three third. A contender for the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Arlington Park in Chicago, Dancethruthedawn suffered a leg injury in the Gr. 1 Spinster Stakes at Keeneland and was retired to the broodmare barn. Her first foal, Dance With Doves, was born in 2004.
Mark Frostad was understandably a bit choked up as he accepted his Hall of Fame ring. He talked about growing up under his father George’s wing, mucking out stalls in and around going to school.
A native of Brantford, Ont., twenty years later his resume reads like this: four Queen’s Plate winners, victories in Canada’s most prestigious races and stakes wins at numerous major U.S. tracks. In all he has over 600 victories and more than 150 stakes to his credit. Three times he has been chosen Canada’s leading trainer. Frostad has conditioned the winners of four Horse of the Year titles and saddled 23 Sovereign Award winners.
Frostad cites BRUCE’S MILL as the horse that got things rolling for him – a Kinghaven horse later purchased by Earle Mack.
Touch Gold –
Touch Gold has been a huge success, siring earners of more than $32 million. Bred by Holtsinger Inc., Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms and Star Stable started 15 times over course of his career for earning of $1,679,907.
Touch Gold is remembered for his dramatic stretch run in the 1997 Belmont Stakes when he spoiled Silver Charm’s chance to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. He stunned a national TV audience and clamoring crowd when he unleashed a tremendous drive in the last furlong to win by three quarters of a length over the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner.
Square Angel –
Breeding triumphed in the spectacular career of this bay filly, a product of E.P. Taylor’s Windfields Farm nursery in Oshawa. A $20,000, purchase for Gen. Preston W. Gilbride in 1971 just two years late she would earn the title as Canada’s champion 3-year-old filly. Prominent on the racetrack, Square Angel was even more prolific in the broodmare barn as the dam of champions and granddam of multiple champion stakes winners.
Legends Category: Lily A. Livingston, Thomas H. Burns, The Eel
Builders Category: W.J. Hyatt
Trainer DEBBIE ENGLAND may have fallen off RILEY RIPASSO and broken her pelvis, but she was there with that same boy when he won the With Approval Stakes last weekend. JOHN SCOTT, co-owner, and KEVIN HALL lead in the Johannesburg fellow.
www.horse-races.net photo
WOODBINE THIS WEEK…
FRIDAY – hot and steamy all week (great day for the opening of the CANADIAN NATIONAL EXHIBITION, fun stuff!)
Trainer DON PLETERSKI won his first race of the season when CARRTOWNS KATIE dropped to a NEW LOW of $12,500 and won the 6th race at 16 to 1 for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles.
THURSDAY – NIIGON offpsring hit the exactor in race 4, a maiden allowance on the grass for Ontario sired gals. SAVETHETHOUGHT, out of the well bred mare Think Sharp, led all the way under Steve Bahen to win for Chiefswood Stable and it was only her 2nd career race. The charging Fairy Road, also by Niigon, was 2nd. It has been a good year for the sire who has a couple of entrants in the open sale coming up in early Sept.
Savethethought is trained by Rachel Halden.
Race 5- The pairing of NORTHERN STORE and WOOKINWICKED were 0 for 38 collectively heading into the $25,00 maiden claimer. The latter has actually won a race before but he was disqualified. You had to feel backl for the gelding yesterday as he had a clear lead very late under Luis Contreras but was nabbed late by Northern Store, co-owned by trainer Lorne Richards. The winner was 0 for 24 heading into the race.
Tough being a bettor/handicapper sometimes – more than once I picked.bet on PLEASURE PLEAKS, the homebred gelding for Elizabeth and Gordon Lickrish, who was in the 8th race, a maiden allowance on the grass. This guy, who ran a 66 Beyer Figure in his May 7 season opener, was then 5th in a route race, 9th on the grass in June 19 before he was dropped to maiden claiming.
At odds on on July 24th, he was 6th!
Stretching out last time at the same level, he was only 5th – fading!.
Thursday, the Peaks and Vallets gelding led most of the way under Jesse Campbell at 45 to 1 with blinkers on and won by a half a head over Park Place, one of the favourites.
No, no bet, no pick. Sigh.
MISER wins Wednesday feature
another super ad for yearling sale
STEVE ASMUSSEN has to be happy with his Ontario sired 3yo MISER. The filly, who cost $24,000 2 years ago at the local yearling sale, won the featured turf allowance last night at Woodbine and now has earnings in excess of $85,000.
Bred by Jennifer Edwards’ Bonny Breeze Acres, the filly, out of Miss Florielo, won the Ontario sired non-winners of 2 race in her grass debut.
A FULL sister to Miser is in the sale as hip 68.
COLEBROOK STALLION SEEKING THE BEST’S FIRST WINNER
with files from Blood-Horse..
Seeking the Best picked up his first winner as a stallion when his 2-year-old daughter, Family Reserve, defeated Is This a Secret by a neck in a six-furlong maiden claiming event on Friday at Woodbine.
Family Reserve was making her career debut. Bred by a partnership that included James Everatt and raced by another partnership that includes Everatt and well known Woodbine horseman Mike Dunslow, the bay juvenile is out of the Wild Event mare Wild Bubbles.
She was 13 to 1 in the small field and was given a beautiful, patient ride in her debut by Jim McAleney.
Racing in Japan, Seeking the Best won the Tokyo Chunichi Sports Hai Musashino (gr. III) and Galaxy stakes in 2006. A 10-year-old son of Seeking the Gold, he captured nine of his 22 career races and earned $1,803,353.
Seeking the Best, who is out of the Summer Squall mare Mackie, stands at Colebrook Farms Stallion Station in Canada for $4,000.
IT’S YEARLING TIME! Catalogues in hand, updates at the ready – send your pics! Here is CARABRED’S offering at Keeneland Sept., the Mike Carroll (SHOWN) bred Stormy Atlantic filly out of Stroke the Tiger
JEFF ALDERSON wins first race
10 pound apprentice Jeff Alderson took his first career win last night at Woodbine when guiding 15 to 1 shot Prado Girl to victory in the 4th race. The young rider looked quite okay as he kept the filly in front throughout the last furlong to win her maiden for $16,000. The winner was hard to figure since she was 0 for 17 going in, albeit with some back class last summer when placing in maiden allowance events. She had been dull this season, however, and was turning back from a 9 furlong race to just 6 1/2 furlongs for her 3rd trainer in a year. The filly is nicely bred by Rahy.
CANADIAN BRED ;BOWMAN’ SET FOR TRAVERS
Chad Brown eyeing a Travers win
August 15, 2011 at 2:33 pm by Tim Wilkin, staff writer
SARATOGA SPRINGS — So far, it’s been a banner of a summer for Mechanicville’s Chad Brown. Through Monday’s 22nd day of racing, the 32-year-old Brown had a healthy 14 wins at the meet and in second place behind the runaway Todd Pletcher (23 wins through three races Monday).
Brown, who won his first Grade I race with Zagora (Diana Handicap on July 31), is coming off a big victory over the weekend. Stacelita won the Grade I Beverly D. at Arlington.
This will truly be a summer to remember for him if Brown can pull off an upset in the Travers Stakes here on Aug. 27. He has never started a horse in the Midsummer Derby.
While most of the Travers attention will be going to Stay Thirsty and Coil and Shackleford, Brown is going to sneak into the starting gate with a colt named Bowman’s Causeway, who is coming off a second place finish in the Prince of Wales Stakes at Fort Erie in Canada.
Before that, he was secoond in the Queen’s Plate Trial and then was fourth in the Queen’s Plate. Both of those races were at Woodbine.
“I love the way the horse is training,” Brown said while sitting in his office on a rainy Monday morning on the Oklahoma Training Track. “I don’t know if he is fast enough … he will have to improve. But, he has done nothing but improve every time.”
Before coming to Brown’s barn, Bowman’s Causeway was being trained by Patrick Biancone.
http://blog.timesunion.com/horseracing/chad-brown-eyeing-a-travers-win/8008/
