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midnight ballet ‘en pointe’ for ‘rachel’ FeB. 23
· Gary Stevens to Ride at Fair Grounds on
By
NEW ORLEANS (Sunday, February 10, 2013) – Trainer Tom Proctor confirmed Saturday from his wintertime base of operations in Southern California that he plans on shipping Stoneway Farm’s Midnight Ballet to New Orleans to contest the Grade III Rachel Alexandra Stakes on Feb. 23 as part of the Louisiana Derby Preview Day Presented by Lamarque Ford program, and also that newly unretired Hall of Fame
Prior to his most recent retirement from the saddle, Stevens had won three Kentucky Derbys, two Preakness Stakes, three Belmont Stakes and eight Breeders’ Cup races, and in 1993, Stevens became the youngest
During his recent retirement, Stevens returned to acting, playing the part of a
Ironically, Stevens won the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in 1996, one year before Stevens was himself inducted into the National Museum of Racing’s Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame at
Also in recent years, Stevens has served as a television personality and sports anchor for HRTV and as a horse racing analyst for NBC Sports.
Stevens, who returned to the saddle last month ending a seven-year retirement, won his first race since 2005 on the Tom Proctor-trained Branding on Jan. 12, but their trainer-
Surely on the short list of Stevens’ greatest riding performances was his win aboard Glen Hill Farm’s One Dreamer in the 1994 Grade I Breeders’ Cup Distaff – and like Branding – One Dreamer was trained by Proctor.
One Dreamer was a front-running mare who had, some weeks earlier, lost
However, with the newly-named Stevens aboard, the chart footnote of the Distaff said One Dreamer was “taken in hand while showing the way on an easy lead, expanded her lead suddenly on the second turn, settled into the stretch while coming further off the inside and held sway under brisk urging.”
That “brisk urging” by Stevens for One Dreamer’s neck tally rewarded her backers with a $96.20 win mutuel, and those in the Churchill Downs stands and television viewers around the world were treated to a view of her proud exercise rider Pete Garrett directing a series of sweeping bows to the crowd all the way up the stretch as he led the mare back to the barn.
“This filly isn’t like that,” Proctor said speaking of Midnight Ballet. “She likes to come from out of it, and I thought that long quarter-mile stretch run at Fair Grounds would suit he
“I’ll put a couple of more works into her out here and I’ll send her over there to
“As for
Interestingly, the Rachel Alexandra serves as the designed prep for the Grade II Fair Grounds Oaks on
Stevens won the Rachel Alexandra in 1999 aboard Hall of Fame filly Silverbulletday when the race was still known as the Davona Dale Stakes. They would go on to take the Fair Grounds Oaks and the Kentucky Oaks during that Eclipse Award-winning season.
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