The chestnut filly KLASSEN makes her career debut in the $125,000 Victoria Stakes at Woodbine on Sunday, July 12, one of the first two-year-old stakes races of the 2026 season. The My Dear Stakes for two-year-old fillies, also worth $125,000, will be run two races after the Victoria.
Owners X-Men Racing VI LLC, Canuck Racing and Madaket Stable and trainer Kevin Attard have elected to start Klassen, an Ontario-bred by Constitution, against the boys rather than start her in the My Dear. The team has had success with this move before; the filly Pipit, owned by X-Men, Madaket and SF Racing and trained by Attard, won the 2023 Victoria over three colts. However, the last filly to win the Victoria Stakes before that was Honky Tonk Tune in 1994.
Klassen, named for multiple medal-winning Canadian speed skater Cindy Klassen, appears to be fast also. She has been beating stablemates in workouts regularly including a very nicely-bred Flightline filly in the Attard barn.
Klassen was a $185,000 purchase from breeder David Anderson at the Keeneland September yearling sale last year. Her dam, Mrs. Hudson, has produced two-year-old stakes winner Airosa.
Klassen, with Rafael Hernandez on board, will be meeting two winners, HESATROOPER, an Ontario-bred who won for $40,000 claiming, and Presque Isle maiden winner UNCLE KEF, owned, bred and trained by Kevin Rice.
The MY DEAR STAKES has seven winners in the field and is a better betting race than the boys’ counterpart. The ship-ins look the most dangerous and invaders have won five of the last 10 My Dears.
Trainer George Weaver has done well with two-year-olds at Woodbine in the past and he brings Ontario-bred GHOST ME, a fast debut winner on the grass at Aqueduct on June 12. Bred by Christine Hayden, Ghost Me is by Ghostzapper out of multiple stakes winner Unspurned. Sahin Civaci will ride.
Trainer Tim Hamm has won two My Dear Stakes in the last decade and he brings BAROMETRIC, a quick maiden winner in May at Presque Isle Downs. And trainer Joe Sharp, from Kentucky, is three-for-eight at Woodbine this year and he brings up GONE AND PLENTY, by MacLean’s Music, after she won her debut at Churchill Downs despite trouble.
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