Rondure and Roger Capture Headlines at Woodbine Saturday

Multiple Hall of Fame inductee and one of Canada’s greatest trainers, ROGER ATTFIELD, won his 2,000th career race on July 2 and while LADY SPEIGHTSPEARE had to share the victory in the Grade 2 Nassau Stakes on turf, it was fitting that the tricky filly owned by Charles Fipke was the historic winner for Attfield.

Trainer Roger Attfield captures his 2,000th lifetime win after Lady Shakespeare dead-heats in the $175,000 Nassau Stakes. (Woodbine/Michael Burns Photo)

Not only has Attfield been a trainer for Fipke for many years and won a Breeders’ Cup race for the BC owner and diamond miner, but Lady Speightspeare was just another example of the trainer’s deft work with a horse with some quirks.

The 4-year-old Speightstown mare is quite brilliant; she won the Grade 1 Natalma in her second career race and was named Champion 2-year-old filly in Canada but then missed a year of racing through to late 2021. She remained unbeaten last fall with a sizzling win in the Bessarabian Stakes (G2).

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But through December to May and meeting tough turf mares in Florida and Kentucky, Lady Speightspeare had troubles from being scratched at the gate, poor starts and catching poor turf courses.

She was happy to be back home, however, and under her favourite rider, Emma-Jayne Wilson, battled hard on the pace throughout the one mile, and led late before invader Crystal Cliffs (Fr) and Rafael Hernandez got a head bob that made for the dead heat.

“She’s an interesting filly to train and she was unlucky this winter,” said Attfield of Lady Speightspeare. “She had a lot of different things happen that people didn’t really know about. And then Churchill was a disaster with that turf course. It’s funny really because the jockey that rode her came back and said, you know, she wasn’t having it with the turf course, the turf course was too loose, and then it turned out that it wasn’t really ready to run, I guess. But anyway, all that said, I’m very proud of her and she trained well into this race and I’m delighted. I didn’t think I got beaten to be honest with you when I was watching. I didn’t know it was going to be a photo.”

Lady Speightspeare is now 5 for 10 in her career with over $480,000 in earnings.

Rondure rolls

It was a very big win by RONDURE in the Grade 3 Marine for 3-year-olds and just as big for his trainer KATERINA VASSILIEVA, who got her first graded stakes win with Borders Racing Stable’s homebred colt.

Vassilieva, who won her first stakes race in 2012 and has mainly operated a small stable of horses, has lured better horses into her stable in recent years and Rondure, whom she acquired for Dan Vella this season, should put her squarely in the picture for the 163rd Queen’s Plate on August 21.

The stout bay colt by Oxbow – Carat Weight by Trajectory, who could have been purchased for little more than $8,000 as a weanling at the CTHS Mixed sale in 2019 (he was bought back by Borders), coasted to a 5 1/2 length win the 1 1/16 mile Marine with Rafael Hernadez riding.

Ironstone, who went off as the 5-2 choice, was asked for big speed out of the gate early in the Marine, but then was wrangled back by jockey Ademar Santos. The two fought each for some time as Allegorical and Rondure held the second and third spots, respectively.

On top by 1 ½ lengths after a half in :49.06, Ironstone, a multiple stakes winning son of Mr Speaker, soon had to contend with Rondure and Hernandez, the duo looming as a major threat heading into the turn for home.

As the field straightened for the dash to the wire, Rondure began to effortlessly distance himself from his rivals, converting a 2 ½-length advantage at the stretch call into a dominating 5 ½ length score. Duke of Love edged Ironstone for second, while Mannix, who was stopped colt on the turn when making a bid, landed fourth.

The final time was 1:43.57.

“I was worried about the short timeline between the Queenston and this race,” said Vassilieva. “There were a few question marks there. But, boy, it didn’t seem like a factor at all today. I just told him [Rafael Hernandez] to save as much ground as he could and come from behind. I wasn’t sure where exactly he was going to find himself because in the first race, he was more forwardly placed than the last race in the Queenston. So, I just left that up to Rafi. I just wanted him to stay out of trouble and get it as clean of a trip as he could.”

Rondure’s dam CARAT WEIGHT, who was a sprinter and won 1 of 19 races, is a half sister to stakes winner Bear’s Gem (out of the mare Simply Precious). Third dam Devaluation is the dam of champion Van Lear Rose. Both Carat Weight and Simply Prcious, the first 2 dams of Ronsure, were bred by Richard Day’s Kingview Farm.

Rondure was foaled and raised at Sue Foreman’s farm in Loretto. Carat Weight had a Reload filly this year.