2013 Sovereign Awards: Horse of the Year, 2, 3 & Older Champions

HORSE OF THE YEAR

UP WITH THE BIRDS

Owner/Breeder: Sam-Son Farm (ON).

Trainer: Malcolm Pierce.

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HORSE OF THE YEAR VOTING TOTALS

Up With the Birds 113

Forte Dei Marmi 52

Phil’s Dream 40

CHAMPION THREE-YEAR-OLD MALE

VOTING TOTALS

Up With the Birds 153

River Seven 60

Five Iron 35

Rick Balaz may not have known how prophetic the name Up With the Birds would be when he named a Sam-Son Farm-bred colt in 2010.

Balaz liked the song by the same name by the rock band Coldplay. Some of the lyrics would prove to be a foreshadowing for one of the continent’s most famous farms: “A simple plot, but I know one day, good things are coming our way.”

Up With the Birds was named Canada’s Horse of the Year of 2013 as well as Champion Three-Year-Old Male when the Sovereign Awards were handed out at Woodbine on April 11, the evening before the 2014 season got underway.

It was the first Horse of the Year title for Sam-Son Farm — founded some 50 years ago by Ernie Samuel — in a decade. The farm went through much tragedy and change since Soaring Free was named Canada’s best horse in 2004 following the deaths of Samuel, his wife Liza and his daughter Tammy, wife of Rick.

A compact son of Stormy Atlantic—Song of the Lark by Seeking the Gold, Up With the Birds was a comfortable winner of the Horse of the Year title with 113 voting points compared to the 52 earned by the Champion Turf Male Forte Dei Marmi (GB).

Sam-Son was also named the year’s Outstanding Breeder, its eighth title in that category.

Balaz and his children Michael and Lisa, operate Sam-Son along with Tammy’s brother and sister, Mark and Kim. Balaz, upon accepting the Horse of the Year trophy for Up With the Birds, emphasized that the colt’s success, as well as that of the farm, is because of great teamwork.

Malcolm Pierce, a longtime Sam-Son assistant before he became its private trainer two years ago, prepared Up With the Birds. Dave Whitford runs the farm and manages the broodmares and Eurico Da Silva rode the stretch-running colt.

“Usually, the owner and trainer and everyone get all the glory. But we have to also thank Larry Aberonti and Vic Oleszkowicz: they are accountants and have been with our company for years. They make sure we don’t get out of control with our spending,” said Balaz to much laughter at the Sovereign ceremony.

Up With the Birds is the ninth Horse of the Year for Sam-Son and his honour was made possible mostly by a smashing Grade 1 score in the Jamaica Handicap at 1 _ miles on the grass at famed Belmont Park, in Elmont, NY.

It was the fourth stakes score for Up With the Birds and wound up being the final race of a campaign that saw him win four of his six starts and $973,000.

Expectations were high for Up With the Birds entering 2013 as the colt had won the biggest race for Canadian-foaled two-year-olds in 2012, the Coronation Futurity.

During his sophomore winter training in New Orleans, Up With the Birds made a return start on March 2 in the Black Gold Stakes at 7 1/2 furlongs on the grass at Fair Grounds. Coming from almost 10 lengths back, the colt was up to win by a head. He ran out of distance when second in the Transylvania Stakes (G2) at Keeneland before settling into his Sam-Son barn on the Woodbine backstretch.

Following an easy score in the Marine Stakes over American-breds at Woodbine, Up With the Birds was fully expected to win the 10-furlong Plate and he went off at 8-5.

Taken back to last in the 12-horse field, Up With the Birds began to fly around rivals over a damp Polytrack surface, but while the front runner, Midnight Aria, was slowing down towards the finish, the Bird could not catch up. He lost by a half-length and jockey Da Silva would be critical of himself for quite some time. Da Silva even mentioned it upon accepting his Outstanding Jockey Sovereign Award: “My year was not perfect. I thought I was on the best horse in the Queen’s Plate. We just missed.”

However, Up With the Birds and Da Silva had their day in the spotlight when they crushed fellow Canadian-bred three-year-olds in the Breeders’ Stakes, the third jewel of Canada’s Triple Crown. The 1 1/2-mile grass race was tailor-made for the colt who won by 2 3/4 lengths over the improving River Seven.

Pierce freshened the colt for almost two months before taking him to New York and the Jamaica.

“He runs hard in every race, we freshened him up with (the Jamaica) in mind,” said Pierce, who was also winning his first Grade 1 race of his career.

Up With the Birds spent several months at Sam-Son’s Florida farm in Ocala before returning to training in early 2014 at Fair Grounds. He returned to the races at Keeneland in a tough allowance race against older horses for the first time and finished sixth, but only three lengths from graded stakes winner Boisterous who won the contentious event. Long-range goals for Up With the Birds include the Canadian International at Woodbine in October.

Sam-Son Farm has had dozens of blue-hen mares since Ernie Samuel purchased his first fillies in the 1960s. Many of them have proven to be foundation broodmares that have continued to supply the farm with top class, Canadian-bred runners, decade after decade.

One of Samuel’s early purchases was Nalee’s Rhythm, a late May, 1975 filly who was bred by Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms in Ontario. A daughter of Nalees Man—Lady Rhythm, by Mister Jive, Nalees Rhythm was a stakes winner as a four-year-old and won six of 20 starts for Sam-Son, earning just over $45,000.

Nalee’s Rhythm produced six foals for Sam-Son, five that made it to the races.

Her fourth foal, Wilderness Song, by Wild Again, became one of the first great racing fillies for the farm and who knows how great she could have been had she not been born in 1988, the same year as her famous stablemate Dance Smartly.

Wilderness Song battled Dance Smartly from the moment the pair began racing as juveniles, but it was the former who provided Sam-Son with its first Grade 1 victory outside of Canada. In 1991, not long before Dance Smartly, who had won the Canadian Triple Crown and won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff (Grade 1) at Churchill Downs, Wilderness Song won the Spinster Stakes at Keeneland. The tough bay mare had been second to Dance Smartly in the Canadian Oaks and Queen’s Plate, but went on to big things again in 1992, winning the Pimlico Distaff and Churchill Downs Handicap (Grade 2) and in ‘93 when she took the Molly Pitcher Handicap (Grade 2) at Monmouth Park.

In 37 starts, Wilderness Song won 15 times and was in the money in 29 races. Of her 37 starts, 31 were in stakes races. In 1992, Wilderness Song won the Sovereign Award as Canada’s champion Older Filly or Mare and in 2008, was inducted into the Canadian Racing Hall of Fame. Her career earnings of $1,482,005 placed her ninth among all leading money-winning Canadian-breds when she retired following the 1993 season.

Wilderness Song never produced a foal as good as her, but from her nine named foals, she had six good winners including stakes placed Go to the Sun, a son of Gone West, who was third in the 2004 Summer Stakes at Woodbine.

The mare passed away in 2011 and was laid to rest at the Milton farm and she has been influential with her granddaughters.

Song of the Lark, a daughter of Seeking the Gold, was her sixth foal, born in 2003. She raced just three times but won a race and was second twice. She was bred to Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms (Kentucky) stallion Stormy Atlantic for her first breeding and produced Up With the Birds.

Her second foal is winner Speightsong, a Queen’s Plate hopeful for 2014. The mare has a two-year-old filly for 2014 by Elusive Quality named Singwithebirds and a 2014 filly by Giant’s Causeway.

Other daughters of Wilderness Song who have done well in the breeding shed include Song of the Wild, dam of stakes placed Giant’s Tomb and Wilderness Storm, the dam of stakes winner Mulmur.

Stormy Atlantic is one of North America’s most successful stallions and a son of one of the all-time greats, Storm Cat. Foaled in 1994, Stormy Atlantic won two sprint-distance stakes races and $146,000 but as a sire, has produced anything from speedsters to long distance grass horses. Since entering stud in 1999, Stormy Atlantic has sire 84 stakes winners including Canadian champion Maritimer, champion Storm Allied and Grade 1 winners Stormello, Next Question and Dahy. He stands for a 2014 fee of $30,000 (U.S.).

The blend of Stormy Atlantic’s speed and turf prowess with Wilderness Song’s stamina and durability has combined to make the first Horse of the Year for Sam-Son since 2004 in Up With the Birds.

CHAMPION THREE-YEAR-OLD FEMALE

LEIGH COURT

VOTING TOTALS

Leigh Court 135

Overheard 55

Nipissing 33

Owner/Breeder: Melnyk Racing Stable (Eugene Melnyk) (KY). Trainer: Josie Carroll.

Leigh Court has always shown plenty of ability and desire to be a racehorse, but the trick for trainer Josie Carroll was to get Eugene Melnyk’s feisty filly to curb her aggressive approach. Some careful training and the addition of jockey Gary Boulanger was the winning formula for the dark bay filly that put together a 2013 record good enough to be voted Canada’s Champion Three-Year-Old Filly at the Sovereign Awards.

Leigh Court did not race as a two-year-old, but was ready to begin her career on Feb. 1 at Fair Grounds in New Orleans where Carroll, a two-time Queen’s Plate-winning trainer, often winters a string of horses. In that six-furlong dirt opener, Leigh Court was knocked around at the start, but the high-strung gal recovered and powered away to a 3 _ length victory. She followed that debut win with a second-place finish in an allowance race on March 3 before she was shipped to Carroll’s Woodbine base. There was no problem introducing the filly to the Polytrack surface as she dragged her rider Patrick Husbands to the lead and stayed on top, winning by two lengths.

Melnyk and Carroll decided to test Leigh Court against some of the better fillies on the circuit in the Selene Stakes on May 19, a 1 1/16 mile race. With substitute rider Justin Stein aboard, Leigh Court simply ran like a wild horse in her first route test, opening up a 10-length lead while setting rapid fractions before she packed her tent before the turn for the finish.

Carroll went back to the drawing board and incorporated Boulanger into the filly’s training. The Canadian-born rider, just three months into his comeback after a serious racing accident, took over the controls of Leigh Court for an allowance race at 6 1/2 furlongs on June 30 and the pair finished a close second. They parlayed that into a comfortable win in the Duchess Stakes at seven furlongs on July 21.

“She’s always been very fast and forward,” Boulanger said after the Duchess. “The big thing with her was getting her to relax and stay settled and not to be too aggressive.”

Leigh Court would not lose again at Woodbine. On Aug. 17, she made her grass debut in the Ontario Colleen Stakes (Grade 3) and held off Pin Oak Stud’s top filly Overheard to win the one-mile event by three-quarters of a length. Switched back to Polytrack, she again beat Overheard in the La Lorgnette at 1 1/16 miles, winning by five-plus lengths.

The new and improved Leigh Court made a final start in 2013 in the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Grade 1) at Keeneland. Stretching out to 1 1/8 miles for the first time, Leigh Court led for almost one mile before she was caught late by three rivals. She was beaten less than two lengths and that capped a smart first season of racing.

A Kentucky-bred, Leigh Court is by Grand Slam from Padmore, by French Deputy.

Padmore, a winner once in her career, had produced the Group 2 winner King of Sydney (by Diesis (GB)) before she joined the Melnyk broodmare band. For Melnyk, she produced Barracks Road, a multiple stakes winner in 2010. Padmore was sold in 2012 at the January Keeneland Horses of All Age sale for $165,000 to Bluegrass Hall.

Melnyk had dispersed almost all of his breeding stock earlier in 2012 to focus on racing.

CHAMPION TWO-YEAR-OLD MALE

Go Greeley

Owner: J.R. Racing Stable.

Trainer: John Ross.

Breeder: Shannon Farms (ON).

VOTING TOTALS

Go Greeley 82

Jose Sea View 81

Asserting Bear 45

Go Greeley, an Ontario-bred, notched four wins from six starts in 2013, including this nose nod in the Simcoe Stakes. The dark bay is trained and owned by John Ross.

One of the most popular combinations of owner and trainer in Ontario racing in the last 15 years has been that of Bud Reynolds’ Jam Jar Racing Stable and trainer John Ross. Reynolds, a gentleman and passionate lover of horse racing, supported the local yearling sales and, on more than one occasion, was able to enjoy some big moments with those purchases. Catahoula Parish (1999) and Shaws Creek (2002) were Plate Trial winners and a litany of others were stakes winners and allowance horses.

Ross, whose first job with horses was warming up show jumpers for Olympic gold medalist Tom Gayford some 30 years ago, had a solid résumé: he trained champion King Corrie for Aubrey Minshall and Breeders’ Stakes winner John the Magician for Syd Cooper, among other top horses.

When Reynolds passed away suddenly during the winter months of 2013, the Jam Jar Stable was dispersed, as Reynolds’ wife Jackie was not able to continue on with the racing business. Ross purchased a few of Reynolds’ horses, but was also given one by Reynolds and his family — Go Greeley.

The large two-year-old colt by Horse Greeley out of Orchids Halo, by Smoke Glacken, had been purchased by Ross for Reynolds for $40,000 from the 2012 Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society (Ontario) select yearling sale.

Ross was training the colt in Ocala, FL when he learned of Reynolds’s passing.

It was a bittersweet moment, then, when Go Greeley made his two-year-old debut in May and won by 3 3/4 lengths under Eurico Da Silva.

“He’s a big, strong two-year-old,” said Ross. “He trained some long, early miles in Florida. He’s a big early foal, a February foal, and he almost looks like a three-year-old to me.”

Go Greeley also proved to be a tough youngster as he engaged in some heady battles in a series of summer juvenile stakes races.

On July 7, the colt drew the rail post in the Clarendon Stakes and got away to a slow start. He was roaring through the stretch at speedster Spin the King, but came up a nose short. That would be his only loss in sprint races in his two-year-old season.

A month later in the Vandal at six furlongs, Go Greeley fought the diminutive Heart to Heart to the wire and won that close photo by a nose. And just 17 days later, on Aug. 28, he turned the tables on Spin the King when he beat that rival by a nose in the Simcoe Stakes, worth $200,000.

Go Greeley made one other start as a two-year-old as he tackled open company in the Grey Stakes (Grade 3) at 1 1/16 miles. In a four-horse field, the colt tracked the pace and raced evenly to be third behind victorious Ami’s Holiday. The colt, which wound up as a gift to Ross, ended the season with a bank account of $390,060.

Go Greeley was bred in Ontario by Laura Yates’ Shannon Farms, which is based in Vancouver but does foal some mares on the east coast.

Sold by Bernard McCormack’s Cara Bloodstock, Go Greeley is a son of Orchids Halo, an unplaced daughter of Shannon Farms’ Devil’s Orchid, who won the Santa Monica Handicap (Grade 1) for the farm in 1991. She earned over $600,000 before she was retired. In the breeding shed, Devils Orchid produced Unification, winner of the Grey Stakes (Grade 3) in 2005 and an early Queen’s Plate favourite for 2006 and stakes winner Mountain Orchid.

Go Greeley won the Sovereign Award for Champion Two-Year-Old Colt by just a single voting point over Brereton Jones’s Jose Sea View, a double stakes winner in 2014.

CHAMPION TWO-YEAR-OLD FEMALE

RIA ANTONIA

Owner: Dunn, Christopher T. and Loooch Racing Stable, Inc.

Trainer: Bob Baffert.

Breeder: Lynn B. Schiff.

VOTING TOTALS

Ria Antonia 105

Paladin Bay 97

Lexie Lou 36

When Ohio resident Ron Paolucci spotted Ria Antonia racing at Woodbine last summer over the simulcast network, he immediately went to look-up the filly’s pedigree. Paolucci, a personable and animated sports lover who admits he essentially gave up a baseball career as a young man to watch and wager on horse races, knew the filly’s trainer, Ricky Griffith, was in the business of selling young horses.

Paolucci told his business partner, Chris Dunn, about the two-year-old daughter of Rockport Harbor and their bloodstock agent, Chris Jackson, set sail for Woodbine to organize a deal.

Ria Antonia, a tall and elegant filly bred by Lynn Schiff in Kentucky, had cost Griffith just $9,000 as a yearling. He had bought the filly for his son Kyle.

The long-striding miss showed promise in her training for the Griffiths, so they ran her in the My Dear Stakes for her career debut and she finished fifth. She promptly won a maiden race over colts in her next start before finishing a decent fourth to the colt Conquest Titan in the Swynford Stakes on Aug. 24 at Woodbine.

In a few days, Paolucci and Dunn were asking Griffith if the filly was for sale. During negotiations, Griffith worked Ria Antonia on the training dirt track at Woodbine to see if she could handle that surface and not just the synthetic Polytrack strip of her home track.

Ria Antonia sizzled four furlongs in that prep in :46.2 and Griffith “raised the price on her by 30 per cent,” said Paolucci. The deal was done and Ria Antonia was sent to trainer Jeremiah Englehart, based at Finger Lakes.

Racing for Paolucci’s Loooch Racing Stable and Dunn, Ria Antonia competed in the important Frizette Stakes (Grade 1) at Belmont Park so that her new interests could see where she ranked with the best fillies in the country.

She finished a modest fifth, beaten six lengths, but Paolucci still wanted to see his star filly try her luck in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita in California.

With blinkers added to her equipment, Ria Antonia, a 32-1 longshot in the 10-horse field, circled wide and came charging late in the 1 1/16 mile race only to be carried out late by favoured She’s a Tiger. The latter won the race by a nose, but then was deemed guilty of interference and was disqualified. Ria Antonia was declared the winner.

It was an exciting moment for Griffith, a former assistant to leading Woodbine trainer Mark Casse, who trains a small stable of horses including stakes winner Dan the Tin Man.

Paolucci, who has some 70 horses in training at various racetracks, filled up dozens of pages in reporter notebooks following the victory and has big plans for the filly in 2014. In only her second start as a three-year-old, Ria Antonia was second in the Santa Anita Oaks (Grade 1) in early April.

“I love this filly,” Paolucci said in one entertaining interview with Blood-Horse. “I love her more than I can love any horse. If I could French kiss her, I would. If I didn’t think she’d bite me, I would. I mean it. I love her. And if she never did another thing on the track, she’s done enough for me.”

CHAMPION OLDER MALE

Alpha Bettor

Owner: Bulldog Racing.

Trainer: Dan Vella.

Breeder: Adena Springs (KY).

VOTING TOTALS

Alpha Bettor 126

Herbie D 58

Ultimate Destiny 34

Jockey Justin Stein powers Bulldog Racing’s Alpha Bettor to a gutsy win in the Grade 2 Eclipse Stakes. The Kentucky-bred chestnut is trained and co-owned by Daniel Vella.

“(The Durham Cup) was probably the best race of his life,” said Daniel Vella. “He took on a horse that’s been in the money in the Breeders’ Cup (Delegation) and people thought was unbeatable, a very good horse. He took him on and still had horse to respond down the stretch. He was heavy weight by a few pounds (carrying 123 pounds to James Street’s 119). I thought it was a super effort.”

Alpha Bettor was considered an overachiever as a three- and four-year-old, popping up to beat some of the top Ontario horses in stakes events as a longshot. However, 2013 pretty much solidified that the big horse has matured into one of Canada’s best handicap horses. Thanks to a career best season in which he won half of his six races, Alpha Bettor was voted Canada’s Champion Older Male at the Sovereign Awards.

Owned by a seven-person syndicate named Bulldog Racing that includes trainer Dan Vella, Alpha Bettor was stakes placed as a three-year-old and a Grade 3 winner in 2012. The son of the late-developing Alphabet Soup (best known for his upset of the great Cigar in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Woodbine in 1996) did not get a lot of respect from the Woodbine bettors in his first few years of racing but the fans began to catch on in 2013.

Alpha Bettor began his five-year-old campaign in the Eclipse Stakes (Grade 3) on May 12 and, in a five-horse field that included Gary Barber’s fast improving runner Delegation, he surprised his rivals at 13-1. Vella, a Sovereign Award-winning trainer himself in 1994 and ‘95, had been impressed with the way the horse had trained in his return to Canada since his winter in Florida.

“He’s bred to be better as he gets older,” said Vella, who was involved in picking out the horse at the two-year-old sale of breeder Adena Springs for $27,000 in 2010.

Delegation would have his revenge in the Dominion Day Stakes (Grade 3) in July as he set a slow early pace and left Alpha Bettor in third in what was a track record time of 2:01.2 for 1 _ miles. A month later, Alpha Bettor stayed closer to the pace in the Seagram Cup (Grade 3) under jockey Justin Stein and held on to win by three-quarters of a length over Ultimate Destiny.

The Bulldog team elected to try their star runner at Presque Isle Downs in Erie, PA for his next start while there was a lull in the older horse stakes schedule at Woodbine. The horse did not take to Presque Isle’s synthetic surface and finished tenth.

“Even though it is also a Polytrack surface, it was a lot deeper,” said Vella. “He just didn’t handle it.”

Alpha Bettor was happy to be back at Woodbine for the Oct. 6 Durham Cup Stakes (Grade 3) as he out-battled Delegation on the pace and surged to the lead in deep stretch before one of his arch rivals, Eugene Melnyk’s James Street, jumped up to beat him in the final yards.

“(The Durham Cup) was probably the best race of his life,” said Vella. “He took on a horse that’s been in the money in the Breeders’ Cup (Delegation) and people thought was unbeatable, a very good horse. He took him on and still had horse to respond down the stretch. He was heavy weight by a few pounds (carrying 123 pounds to James Street’s 119). I thought it was a super effort.”

The horse would end the season on a winning note as he caught up to front-running Occasional View to win the Autumn Stakes (Grade 2) and boost his seasonal earnings to $346,700.

Alpha Bettor is the sixth foal of the Relaunch mare Scatter Buy, a stakes winner whose first foal was Pennsylvania Oaks winner Amazing Buy. Alpha Bettor is the last horse to race for the mare that passed away in 2012.

Alpha Bettor is on track to resume his career as a six-year-old in 2014 with an eye on repeating in the Eclipse in mid-May.

CHAMPION OLDER FEMALE

SISTERLY LOVE

Owner: Gary Barber.

Trainer: Mark Casse.

Breeder: Kinsman Farm (KY).

VOTING TOTALS

Sisterly Love 123

Part the Seas 71

Moonlit Beauty 42

Jockey Eurico Rosa Da Silva exalts after guiding Sisterly Love to victory in the Ontario Matron Stakes. The Kentucky-bred is owned by Gary Barber and trained by Mark Casse.

When trainer Mark Casse greeted Sisterly Love into his barn in early 2013, it didn’t take him long to be impressed with the five-year-old mare’s prospects. He had watched George Steinbrenner’s homebred filly win an allowance race at Gulfstream Park in Florida on Dec. 30, 2012.

When Gary Barber purchased the unbeaten mare privately, Casse was ready to take over the training duties.

Casse sent the daughter of Bellamy Road to Sam Houston Race Park in Texas for her first race, the $400,000 Houston Ladies Classic Stakes, under the Barber silks. She went head on with Canadian-bred Joyful Victory, one of the top American-based fillies of 2013, early in the 1 1/16 mile race before fading to third.

A trip to New York for the Top Flight Handicap (Grade 2) on March 2 was a wash early for the mare as she had a sluggish beginning from the gate, rushed up to press the pace and then dropped back to fifth. No doubt the Casse camp had to figure out what would make their new purchase happy.

Sisterly Love arrived at Woodbine in April, 2013 and shortened up to a sprint distance for the Whimsical Stakes (Grade 3). Again, the mare had a faulty start from the gate and she was never involved in the event.

It was when Casse returned her to a two-turn distance that she put things together and returned to the form that Barber and Casse knew she could produce.

In the $133,000 Trillium Stakes on June 8, Sisterly Love led from start to finish under Eurico Da Silva and won by 8 1/2 lengths.

Casse, relieved at the victory, believed the traveling had not served the mare well before settling at Woodbine. “We were hard on her and as Gary (Barber) said, we treated her like she was a FedEx package,” said Casse following the Trillium. “She went a lot of different places and I promised Gary after she ran bad last time that the next time she runs we’re going to see a new Sisterly Love. This is the first time she’s been able to run and train at one place for very long and the difference showed.”

To emphasize the point, the mare won again in her next race, the Ontario Matron Stakes (Grade 3), with ease, scoring by 3 1/2 lengths.

Sisterly Love was an unlucky loser in the Belle Mahone Stakes a month later as she was pestered hard on the early pace by longshot Moonlit Beauty and while that rival faded badly, Sisterly Love held on bravely before she was edged late by Colebrook Farms’ Reconnect.

In perhaps one of her better efforts of the season, Sisterly Love finished fourth in the important Spinster Stakes (Grade 1) at Keeneland in October. She ended her season with a failed attempt on the dirt in the Chilukki Stakes at Churchill Downs, but Casse noted she is perhaps happier on Polytrack.

“There are a lot of races for her in Toronto and she loves Woodbine,” said Casse.

Sisterly Love is the 11th foal for the unplaced Dixieland Band mare Odylic. The mare’s other foals to race include winner Dynamic Feature, the dam of another productive mare in 2013, Parranda, a winner of over $400,000.