Toronto, ON – S J Stables’ homebred Cloudy’s Knight showed what a game, gutsy competitor he is by winning the $2 million Pattison Canadian International, Canada richest horse race, Sunday at Woodbine.
Ridden brilliantly by Ramsey Zimmerman, Cloudy’s Knight, sent postward an 18-1 outsider, took over around the eighth-pole from Sunriver, opened a length on his 11 rivals, then held off Britain’s 5-2 favourite Ask in a furious drive to the wire, hanging on to win the Grade 1, mile and one-half turf classic, by a diminishing nose.
German-bred Quijano, the 7-2 third choice, wound up third, just one length further back and a neck in front of fourth-place finisher Stream of Gold. The final time, over a firm E.P. Taylor Turf Course, was 2:27.71.
Last year, it was the venerable eight-year-old Collier Hill who outbattled a younger rival, Go Deputy, to win the Pattison in much the same fashion. Today, it was another ageless performance by another veteran of the racing wars, as the seven-year-old held off four-year-old Ask and jockey Ryan Moore.
Trained by Chicago-based Frank Kirby, Cloudy’s Knight, a Kentucky-bred gelded son of Lord Avie, was winning his second straight race at Woodbine, after scoring in the Sky Classic September 23, defeating some of his Pattison rivals in the process. It was his 10th win in 32 career starts, but far and away his biggest and his first Group 1 victory.
“He’s got a lot of guts,” said an emotional, 25-year-old Zimmerman. “He’s never, never not tried for me. God bless him and praise the Lord for this day. It (the race) just set up perfectly. He broke exactly how I wanted him to. Then he stalked a couple of lengths off the speed horses that were crawling. I’m just so grateful to be in Canada today and be a part of this day representing America.
“He was able to just relax off those speed horses. If you get in his mouth, he might want to go fast, so I just threw the reins at him and it was perfect, right where he was. I was able to bide my time. I took a look over my shoulder to see if anyone was challenging from the outside, but nobody was. It was just a brilliant performance by Cloudy’s Knight.”
Surprisingly, it was Marsh Side and jockey Emma-Jayne Wilson who went immediately to the front, stalked by Sunriver and jockey Garrett Gomez, loping along through fractions of :25.18, :50.89 and 1:15.60, before reaching the mile mark in 1:40.02. But not far off, in a stalking position in fifth, then third, was the eventual winner.
When the field turned into the long stretch, Sunriver briefly took over but was immediately challenged by Cloudy’s Knight, as the field started to converge on the leaders. Cloudy’s Knight then edged to the front and had enough left in his tank for the win, as Ask was trying to lug in during his frantic pursuit of the leader.
“What a great race he ran and a great race the jockey rode,” said
70-year-old conditioner Kirby. Kirby indicated that plans are to bring Cloudy’s Knight back again to the races next year as an eight-year-old. “We’ll plan a big campaign for him if everything’s good,” he said.
Cloudy’s Knight, a career earner of over $830,000 coming into the Pattison, picked up a cheque for $1.2 million for the win in his final race of the 2007 season, as he crossed the $2 million threshold in earnings.
Canadian hopes were riding on Bill Sorokolit’s Sky Conqueror and Sam-Son Farm’s Windward Islands. Sky Conqueror, last year’s Sovereign Award winner as Canada’s top male turfer, failed to threaten, finishing seventh, while Windward Islands, up close to the pace for most of the race, faded down the lane to finish ninth.
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