He was a half-length short in the Queen’s Plate, but Up With the Birds will get a second chance at glory when he challenges nine rivals in Sunday’s $500,000 Breeders’ Stakes, third jewel of Canada’s Triple Crown of Racing, at Woodbine.
At 1 ½ miles, the Breeders’ is the longest and only turf event of the three-race series, which kicked off last month with a win by Midnight Aria in the venerable 1 ¼-mile Plate on July 7 over Woodbine’s Polytrack. Uncaptured captured the second gem, the 1 3/16-mile Prince of Wales, over Fort Erie’s dirt strip on July 30.
The 123rd edition of the Breeders’ is likely to be all about Up With the Birds, who drew post five and was installed as the 6-5 favourite on Thursday to collect the $300,000 winners share.
The bay son of Stormy Atlantic, a Sam-Son Farms homebred, is the most accomplished in the field with three stakes wins including one on turf and $570,641 in career earnings.
After the heart-breaking loss in the Plate, trainer Malcolm Pierce freshened up Up With the Birds, deciding to skip the Prince of Wales and focus on the Breeders’.
“He’s had no reason for time off. I just felt it was the right thing to do by the horse,” said Pierce. “We decided to take a pass on the Prince of Wales and point to the Breeders’ and have a very fresh horse to go a mile and a half. Hopefully our plan is the right plan and we’ll know that by 5:30 on Sunday afternoon, but I feel good going into the race and I expect him to show up.”
The Plate still stings though, according to Pierce. “It’s a shame he didn’t get going a little bit earlier in the Queen’s Plate. It was a crazy day where we had a lot of rain and it made the track very speed favouring which hindered us and helped the winner. He just missed. He was running.”
Eurico Rosa da Silva, who has ridden him in all five of his Woodbine starts, gets the ride in the Breeders’.
With a win in the Breeders’, Sam-Son would hold the mark for most Breeders’ wins by an owner in the Triple Crown era. The stable is currently tied with Kinghaven Farms and Windfields Farms with five.
Ready for the rich Breeders’ battle is Hall of Fame trainer Roger Attfield, who will enter 5-2 second choice Global Express, owned by My Meadowview Stable, from post three.
Global Express is a fresh face to the Triple Crown scene with only three career starts, all in the last 10 weeks. The son of Street Sense recorded modest results in his first races, both on Poly, but erupted with a fast 8 ¾-length score in his turf debut last month.
The fact that Attfield, who holds the record for most Breeders’ wins by a trainer with eight, will saddle the bay April foal for a12-furlong race in his fourth career start will be taken lightly by few. Luis Contreras, who tallied the race with Pender Harbour in 2011, will get the call.
Pyrite Mountain (PP 1, 6-1 in the morning line) returns to the Triple Crown. The son of Silent Name skipped the Prince of Wales after finishing seventh in the Queen’s Plate. The two-time stakes winner has trained well over turf prepping for the Breeders’ for trainer Mark Frostad and Awesome Again Racing Limited. Gary Boulanger makes his debut aboard the bay colt.
Frostad feels he’s got the right horse for the Breeders’. “This horse is probably better on turf than he is on any other surface. We got in a lot of trouble (in his first turf start), but what convinced me that he’s a good turf horse is the way he closed in that race when he finally got loose. He closed a lot of ground in the stretch. I think he’ll be much better on the turf. He’s ready for this dash.”
River Seven (PP 9, 8-1) will be the only horse to participate in all three Triple Crown events after finishing 10th in the Plate and an excellent second-place effort behind Uncaptured in the Prince of Wales last time out. The Johannesburg gelding makes his turf debut for jockey Jesse Campbell, trainer Nick Gonzalez and owner Tucci Stables, who teamed up to win the Queen’s Plate with Midnight Aria.
The rest of the Breeders’ field features Triple Crown newcomers.
The most interesting of the group is Scipio (PP 2, 12-1), who will be saddled by Reade Baker for Stronach Stables. Emma-Jayne Wilson, who guided the Orientate colt to his first career win in a 1 1/16-mile race over Polytrack last time out, will partner him in his grass debut.
Three sophomores are listed at 20-1 in the morning line. Bookies Nightmare (PP 7, jockey Davy Moran, trainer Carolyn Costigan), a maiden; Highland Bay (PP 4, Justin Stein, Denyse McClachrie) and Who’s Mr. Hughes (PP10, Omar Moreno, Mike Keogh) who was supplemented to the race for $12,500, have all shown strong recent efforts on turf.
Dragon Puff (PP 8, Tyler Pizarro, Sam DiPasquale) and maiden Faithful Rose (PP 6, Richard Dos Ramos, Ricky Singh) are listed at 30-1 in the Breeders’ morning line.
It will be the 10th straight year without a Triple Crown champion in Canada. Wando was last to achieve the impressive three-race sweep in 2003.
The race will be televised live on Sportsnet 360 in HD (High Definition) in a special presentation from 4:30 – 5:30 pm ET. Post time is 5:10 pm.
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