BETFAIR TVG ALABAMA PROFILE: HAVRE DE GRACE

**This is the fourth in a series of contender profiles for the Grade 1 Betfair TVG Alabama to be run on Saturday, August 21.**

 

** For an up-close-and-personal video of Havre de Grace, please visit http://www.youtube.com/nyravideo#p/a/u/0/xD-XsG9jjAQ **

 

 

Thursday, August 19, 2010

 

Contact: Jenny Kellner

vkellner@nyrainc.com

 

BETFAIR TVG ALABAMA PROFILE: HAVRE DE GRACE

 

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When a striking 2-year-old daughter of Saint Liam stepped off the van from South Carolina at Tony Dutrow’s barn in May of last year, all the trainer could say was “Wow.”

 

 “Like all of [owner] Rick Porter’s horses, she was big and beautiful, and I looked at her and said, ‘I am so glad that this one found its way to my barn’,” said Dutrow, standing outside Havre de Grace’s stall at Saratoga Race Course several days before the 130^th running of the Grade 1 Betfair TVG Alabama.

 

Not a precocious horse, Havre de Grace raced twice in the fall of 2009, both times around two turns at Delaware Park, as Dutrow and Porter looked ahead and designed her 3-year-old campaign.

 

“We thought it would be great to give her racing experience,” said Dutrow. “She finished third in her first race, won the other, and then we put her away to give her time to develop.”

 

Taken to Florida, Havre de Grace did just that, finally returning to the worktab at Delaware Park in April and winning her 3-year-old debut in impressive fashion. In that one-mile allowance race on May 10, she came from off the pace to draw off to a 1 ¼ length victory over Broken Rules and stablemate Volare Cantare, the favorite who was coming off a fifth-place finish in the Grade 2 Comely.

 

Beaten a neck by No Such Word in the Go For Wand at Delaware Park a month later, Havre de Grace then stepped up to tackle Blind Luck in the Grade 2 Delaware Oaks, getting nosed out at the wire in what was only her fifth career start.

 

“She has improved in every one of her starts,” said Dutrow of Havre de Grace. “I was very, very proud of her in the Delaware Oaks in her first start in a graded stakes. She’s been very professional and problem-free from the beginning, and special in that she has developed into one of the top fillies of her generation.”

 

She has also developed into one of the favorites among the humans in Dutrow’s barn, as much for her friendly, inquisitive personality as for her ability.

 

“She’s a sweetheart,” said Kim Dutrow, Tony’s wife and assistant. “She likes to stop and look at everything and graze. And, she’s as pretty as you want to see. She’s so nice, and laid-back, and classy.”

 

And coming into Saturday’s 1 ¼ mile race in great order.

 

“When we ran her last year around two turns, it was because they were going to run slowly all the way around, and she was not going to hurt herself physically,” said Dutrow. “We wanted to bring her back as a 3-year-old and in the hope she’d be the filly she is. It all worked out exactly the way we wanted it to.”

 

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