George Strawbridge Jr. has a long and successful history of racing Thoroughbreds in Canada. An owner and breeder of steeplechasers in the 1970s, Strawbridge’s Augustin Stables had international racing stars on the Thoroughbred side in short order, horses such as champion Waya, Treizieme, Tikkanen and Selkirk.
A sportsman, historian, teacher and businessman, Strawbridge had a stable of horses at Woodbine with Mac Benson for several decades. He won the Coronation Futurity with Classic Result, graded stakes with Ice Bear, Sugar Bay and stakes with Allende, My Pal Lana and Nashinda, to name a few.
Now 86, Strawbridge, who is a cousin of Charlotte Weber, owner of the similarly successful Live Oak Stud, continues to race horses with the majority of them trained by Jonathan Thomas in Kentucky. And Thomas has raced these horses at Woodbine every year.
Incredibly, about a half century since he embarked in racing, Strawbridge had one of his biggest days at Woodbine on Oct. 5 when half siblings MOUFFY and TRULY QUALITY won the Grade 2 Dance Smartly Stakes and Grade 3 Singspiel Stakes, respectively, on Fall Turf Showcase Day.
The weather was brilliant for the Turf Showcase day and the Dance Smartly and Singspiel each had a host of shippers entered. The Dance Smartly, in fact, had been won by a shipper for six straight years.
The most fascinating horse in the 1 1/16 mile turf race on a ‘good’ surface was South African Horse of the Year PRINCESS CALLA (SAf), unraced since March in her homeland and purchased at that time by American John Stewart’s Resolute Racing. Trained by Chad Brown at Belmont for several months, Princess Calla was made the 2-to-1 favourite with Patrick Husbands riding.
The other top contenders included 2023 Horse of the Year FEV ROVER (Ire) seeking her first win of the season and soon headed to auction and a host of gals coming out of the Ladies Turf (G3) at Kentucky Downs over an inside, speed-biased turf course.
It was the Kentucky Downs shippers who thrived at Woodbine.
MOUFFY, ninth in the Ladies’ Turf but a stakes winner of the Perfect Sting at Aqueduct in a previous start, came out of nowhere under former French jockey Vincent Cheminaud to edge the Neil Drysdale trained NADETTE (Fr) who had been sixth at Kentucky Downs.
The stretch runners had a field day in the Dance Smartly after Spansive and Canisy battled through 23.86 and 47.42. With the outside of the Taylor turf course deemed firmer than the inside, Mouffy and Nadette, who were last and second last on the turn, moved out for the stretch run.
Meanwhile, Princess Calla had an unfortunate beginning as she stood in the gate at the start and was last some eight lengths behind the field. By the turn, she was on the rail just five lengths off the lead. Into the stretch other other Chad Brown trainee, Tax Implications (GB) was seven wide and going to the lead, Mouffy in the 4 path and rallying and Nadette widest and charging.
Tax Implications got a bit tired and then bumped Fev Rover while Nadette flew late, looking like the winner, only to have Mouffy come up to grab the win in 1:42.07.
Nadette was second while Fev Rover was placed third when Tax Implications was disqualified and put fourth.
Mouffy is a Strawbridge homebred by Uncle Mo from the stakes-placed mare TRULY TOGETHER by Canadian-bred Smart Strike.
Truly Together is a daughter of Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf winner Forever Together who earned over $2.9 million. While Forever Together has produced five modest winners, Truly Together has two graded stakes winner from her first three foals.
TRULY QUALITY was odds-on in the Singspiel despite post 14 in the 1 3/8 mile race. After a sluggish start, the son of Quality Road was last but one around the final turn and seemingly not advancing. But once jockey Cheminaud angled the four-year-old gelding out wide, he took off and grabbed the win on the sire from Ontario-bred English Conqueror, owned by JWS Farms.
An improving fellow, Truly Quality won his first stakes attempt in his most recent starts in the Colonial Cup at Colonial Downs on Sept. 7, setting a course record for 10 furlongs on 2:25. The gelding is now four-for-12 in his career and he may go to the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Del Mar next month.
Wagering on the 11-race card at Woodbine was a decent $7.8 million.
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