2011 Sovereign Awards: Champion Two-Year-Old Filly Tu Endie Wei

The name “Tu Endie Wei” refers to the Wyandot Indian phrase meaning “the point between two waters” in English. The two-year-old filly of 2011, Tu Endie Wei, made a lot of points, exclamation points that is as she went three for three at Woodbine and easily collected the Sovereign Award for Canada’s Champion Two-Year-Old Filly.

Owned and bred by Brereton Jones, Tu Endie Wei’s name comes about through Jones’ interest in the Battle of Point Pleasant, fought between the settler militia of Virginia and the forces of Shawnee Chief Cornstalk on October 10, 1774. Ms. Cornstalk is the dam of Tu Endie Wei as well Jones’ Horse of the Year and champion three-year-old filly from 2010, Biofuel.

With championship breeding on her side, it was not a surprise that Tu Endie Wei impressed trainer Reade Baker early on in her training. Baker, who lets his horses do the talking in the afternoon and is happiest just to have them breeze easily in the mornings, was, however, mildly surprised when the filly won her opener in near-track record time.

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With Jim McAleney along for the ride, Tu Endie Wei won her June 25 debut by 4 3/4 lengths with a devastating rally from ninth place, stopping the clock in :56 4/5 for five furlongs, earning a whopping 91 Beyer Speed Figure.

“I thought she would win,” Baker said to reporters later. “She had manhandled horses in the barn that were okay. I didn’t mind the outside post. I thought she could circle the field and beat them.”

On August 13 in her first stakes test, Tu Endie Wei, despite getting a bit unnerved prior to the start, won the Ontario Debutante Stakes by half a length over the good Northern Passion with an 83 Beyer Figure.

Baker elected to send the filly against the best of her division in the United States and sent her to Keeneland for the Grade I Darley Alcibiades Stakes at 1 1/16 miles. After becoming a bit unsettled in the starting gate, however, Tu Endie Wei was last early in the 11-horse field and could only manage a seventh place finish. The filly was returned to Woodbine to regroup for the Glorious Song Stakes on Nov. 13 and won with flair, galloping home by almost five lengths in a rapid 1:21 4/5 for 7 furlongs.

The filly was retired for the season and sent to Florida where she began training again with Baker at Palm Meadows training centre in Boynton Beach. “I’m concentrating more on what she’s going to be like as an older filly,” said Baker. “I’m not worried about getting too much done early. She’s not a speedball two-year-old.”

For Jones, his stakes-winning roll since joining Baker with a stable of his runners at Woodbine has lured the Kentucky horseman into supplying the Woodbine meeting with plenty of runners. “I feel tremendously blessed (to have bred and raced both Biofuel and her full sister Tu Endie Wei),” said Jones. “ We have the right people at home and here that played a big part of it. She’s got this tremendous ability and this tremendous heart and that’s a great combination.”