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Barn Notes:
In Today’s Notes:
- Team Valor Acquires Arlington 2-Year-Old Winner
- Every Way on Her Way to Modesty
TEAM VALOR ACQUIRES ARLINGTON 2-YEAR-OLD WINNER
Renowned global syndicate Team Valor International has acquired impressive Arlington International Racecourse juvenile maiden winner Tulira’s Star from owner Curtis Green and trainer Jimmy DiVito, according to Team Valor founder and CEO Barry Irwin. A daughter of the A. P. Indy stallion Congrats out of stakes-producing mare Tulira, Tulira’s Star won by a widening 3 ½ lengths on Sunday, June 8, over 4½ furlongs on the main course. Her time of :52.36 was the quickest of four juvenile course and distance maiden special weights this season.
“We’ve done well with this type of horse,” Irwin remarked. “She’s a half to two stakes winners and if she can win a couple stakes, that would be great.” One of Tulira’s Star’s siblings is Tulira Castle, who won the Challenger Stakes on the Tampa Bay Downs turf this winter.
“Whatever she is going to do, she is going to do immediately,” Irwin continued. “If all goes well, we should be able to run her at least four or five times this year in good races. She doesn’t have to win one for us to do well – if she can place we’ll do fine. We’ve bought six or seven like her and one time we got really lucky with Cashier’s Dream, who won a Grade I at Saratoga.”
In 2001, Cashier’s Dream was purchased after defeating future multiple Grade I winner You in a Churchill Downs allowance (You would coincidentally also be privately purchased out of the race) before winning the Grade III Debutante Stakes at Churchill and the Grade I Spinaway Stakes at Saratoga. She would race 4 times that season, including a runner-up to You in the Grade I Frizette, for Team Valor and co-owner Heiligbrodt Racing – earning $318,510 post-acquisition.
“What we do is watch the horse’s race several times from many different angles,” Irwin explained. “Usually when a horse hits the wire and pulls up, its legs go all over the place – it’s almost difficult to watch. Her action still continued straight-forward. I’ve only seen that happen a few times. By the times she changed leads, when they let her down in the stretch, she only had about six seconds to show her kick. And (La Grange) who finished second looks like a good filly too. If she were not in the race, (Tulira’s Star) would have won by about eight lengths.”
As easily and smoothly as she won her debut, the bay filly seems to be winning over Team Valor’s syndicate investors with similar finesse. “We’ve sold about 90% of her shares already,” Irwin said. “We have had no problem with that.”
Tulira’s Star will now join Team Valor’s U.S.-based private trainer Rick Mettee at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland. “She’ll leave on Monday and then we hope to run her opening day at Saratoga in the Schuylerville – a Grade III,” Irwin concluded.
EVERY WAY ON HER WAY TO MODESTY
Every Way, who defeated multiple Illinois champion La Tia in a salty Arlington International Racecourse allowance on May 9, is on target for bigger and better prizes after a photo-finish second in the Minnesota HBPA Distaff Stakes at Canterbury Park last Saturday, June 7. After sitting comfortably off the pace with regular jockey James Graham on the off-the-turf muddy event, the daughter of City Zip engaged favorite Gold Medal Dancer and battled the length of the stretch, only to lose by a head at the wire.
“She came out in good shape,” trainer Mike Stidham said. “It looked like we were going to win it and we got tagged right on the wire. I’m really proud of her. She’s performed well on a muddy racetrack and has interestingly done well on every surface – turf, Polytrack and dirt. There for a while I thought grass was her preference, but when she beat La Tia (on the Polytrack) she ran her best Ragozin number - an ‘8’. I’m not sure now what her preferred surface is.”
The stakes literally get higher as the year progresses for the chestnut 4-year-old filly owned by Haynes Stable, Steven Perlick, Alan Herman and Richard Dunn. “We are definitely looking at the (Grade III $200,000) Modesty Handicap (on July 12),” Stidham confirmed. “That seems to be the obvious place to look right now.”
While it’s known that she can handle the turf of the Modesty – with three stakes placings on the grass, including the Grade III Pucker Up at Arlington last year – the 1 3/16-miles distance is still a small question mark for her connections. “That’s what we have to find out,” Stidham said. “She has run well at a mile and an eighth and this wouldn’t be that much farther. You don’t know until you try.”
Ground Transport, another locally based stakes performer on June 7 for the Stidham barn, has also returned sound. On the Belmont Stakes undercard, Ground Transport went off as the 4-1 second choice in the Grade II Brooklyn Invitational, but tired to finish fifth – 15 lengths astern Stuart Janney III’s victorious Norumbega.
“He came back okay. He’s always had a lot of feet problems in the past, but he came out of the race in good shape,” Stidham said of the colt owned by West Point Thoroughbreds, St. Elias Stable and Get Grounded Stable. “The race didn’t set up to help his (front-running) style. He got hooked and you can’t grab him. If the jockey does that, he might bolt or resent it. You almost just have to give him his head and let him pick his comfortable pace. It’s more of an attitude thing. We’ll move on from this and nominate to different spots.”
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