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Edenwold
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Pipers Thunder
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Malakoff
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Edenwold
Edenwold developed into one of the most impressive juveniles in Canada in 2005, winning four races in a row between July and September, including the Colin, Vandal and Simcoe Stakes. Ultimately, the large colt’s stakes triple earned him the title of Canada’s top two-year-old.
The Jim and Alice Sapara charge then stretched out to 1 1/8 miles in the Coronation Futurity. Going into the first turn, he was forced to check hard and squeezed to the back of the pack. Edenwold closed valiantly around the second turn and into the stretch, but could do no better than fourth, two lengths behind winner Thinking Out Loud. Edenwold returned later in the month in the Display, in which he finished a flat fifth, an effort trainer Josie Carroll believes wasn’t a fair assessment of his ability. Edenwold had minor surgery following the race and returned to training in late February.
Edenwold enters the Plate having started twice in 2006. In his debut, the seven-furlong Queenston Stakes May 6, his new pilot, Emile Ramsammy, positioned him in fourth just off the early pace. The large chestnut colt rallied extremely wide on the turn and finished with resolve, just missing by a neck to Plate rival Atlas Shrugs.
The Plate Trial, June 4, didn’t unfold as planned for many of the entrants. It was a race in which nobody really wanted the lead, but everyone ended up there, including third-place finisher Edenwold. “I didn’t think he’d be quite as close as he was. The two horses went out in front of him and (Pyramid Park) came off the rail a bit. We were stuck in the middle and took a little pressure there.”
Despite the trip, Edenwold remained a factor for the remainder of the Trial and even battled back gamely in the final yards in an attempt to reclaim second. “It looked like he tired a little bit at the sixteenth pole. I was happy with the way he dug back in and galloped out. I think the track was playing to outside speed that day. I don’t think there were any excuses. He ran the race we needed him to run to get ready for the Queen’s Plate.”
Edenwold has never missed the exactor ticket in seven career sprint efforts, but has yet to finish better than third in three two-turn tilts. Can he get the Plate distance? For Carroll, the Plate Trial confirmed that Edenwold could handle two turns. She is hopeful 1 ¼ miles is within his range. “I thought he ran a very gutsy 1 1/8 miles. If that moves him forward, then he should get the trip.”
Carroll said Edenwold bounced back from the Plate Trial effort faster than the Queenston. “The race before he came back pretty fatigued. He came out of the Plate Trial tired, but tired in the way that he got enough out of the race. He’s actually been playing and happy since.”
Edenwold’s ‘key’ preparatory workout before the Plate came on June 14. Edenwold worked six furlongs in 1:12 2/5, handily, over Woodbine’s main track. Ramsammy, who was in the irons for the drill, positioned Edenwold a few lengths behind a pair of stablemates that were also training six furlongs, head and head. “That gave him a little bit of a target to focus on. I needed a sharp work into him. He broke off at a reasonable, settled pace. He sat off of those horses and then came through on the inside of them and finished up strong.”
Carroll also paid close attention to how Edenwold galloped out after the work. “He’s doesn’t tend to (gallop) out really strong, once he’s gone past the wire. He worked out a good mile and continued down the backside. That surprised me. It was something I was really happy to see going into this race.”
The son of Southern Halo is the 10th champion two-year-old (since the inception of the Sovereign Awards in 1976) to contest the following season’s Queen’s Plate, but the first since 2000, when Highland Legacy returned in the 1 ¼-mile classic (finishing ninth). Of the nine previous champions to make it into the Plate field, only Sound Reason was able to win the ‘Guineas.’
Hot Deputy
It’s not too hard to see how Hot Deputy was named…being by Silver Deputy out of Astro Beauty. In fact, his connections thought they indeed had a ‘hot' one, going into the June 4 Plate Trial.
After breaking his maiden with an off the pace rally on May 13 over a mile and one-sixteenth, following a third place finish on April 30 to Malakoff (who subsequently won the Marine Stakes May 20 impressively), trainer Sid Attard was hopeful of a good showing by the Tucci Stables colour-bearer in the Trial. Alas, what he got was a puzzling performance, an eighth place finish, beaten over 15 lengths by Plate rival Pipers Thunder.
“He was sitting good, was making a run and then he just stopped,” recalled Attard. “I don’t know what happened. We scoped him after the race, he had a little mucous but nothing serious. Maybe that stopped him, who knows? I thought he was going to run a good race that day. He had worked really good for the race. We were very disappointed.”
What do you do with a bad race that you can’t explain? Throw it out, especially when you know the horse is much better than that. Hot Deputy has come back to work decently since the Trial, a six furlong breeze Saturday over Woodbine’s main track, in 1:15. “He worked very well. He was comfortable,” said Attard. Aboard was jockey Constant Montpellier, who will also ride the Quebec-bred colt for the first time in the Plate. The other Quebec-bred in the race is Shillelagh Slew. No Quebec-bred has ever won the ‘Gallop for the Guineas.’
Owners Lou and Carlo Tucci plucked Hot Deputy out of a Florida (Calder) two-year-olds in-training sale. But they weren’t actually in attendance when he was bought. ”We asked one of the guys (of Three Chimneys) to look at six Canadian-breds (which were being offered). We couldn’t make it (down there). We thought he’d go for well over $100,000 and we picked him up for $80,000,” recalled co-owner Lou Tucci. Added Carlo Tucci, “We’d done the preliminary work. We were looking specifically for a Canadian-bred. It’s a dream to win some of the Canadian classics. They liked his breeding, the way he looked.”
So, Hot Deputy shipped to Canada, c/o Sid Attard and what happens? “He was getting ready to run. I took him to the track one day. He was galloping and pulling up (after a workout) and some geese came under the fence. He saw them, got scared and kind of reared up (twisting his back).” The result? “He needed stall rest for three months. A hundred million things can go wrong (in this game).”
Hence the reason for the colt’s delayed debut, which didn’t come until November 27, when he finished ninth, going five furlongs. Two weeks later, there was some improvement, as Hot Deputy wound up third in a six furlong maiden test. “We ran him short, but he doesn’t want to go short,” said Attard. “He likes to come from far back.”
He was then shipped to Florida, where he ran once on March 23, again at six furlongs, finishing seventh, prior to coming home and running third to Malakoff in a maiden mile and one sixteenth affair.
Can Hot Deputy put the collar on the Plate field? “I’ll tell you one thing, he’ll be a nice price,” concluded Attard. “But I really don’t know how he’s going to do.”
Malakoff
This white-faced son of Lemon Drop Kid is hoping to leave a sour taste in the mouths of his rivals in Sunday’s Queen’s Plate, as Malakoff, a son of the stakes-winning mare Last Vice, a daughter of one of Canada’s greatest broodmare sires, Vice Regent, goes for the ‘Guineas’ and his third consecutive win.
For all the history buffs out there, Malakoff is named after a famous battle between the French and the Russians on September 7, 1855, as a part of the Siege of Sevastopol.
Woodbine has indeed been kind to the Stronach Stables colour-bearer, who boasts a record of two wins and one second from three starts at the Toronto oval. And the latest effort? Talk about a head-turner! Under Todd Kabel, who’ll be in the irons on Plate Day, Malakoff stalked, bid three-wide and then strutted to a resounding 7 ¼-length victory in a smart time of 1:46, in the Grade 3 Marine Stakes on May 20.
Trainer Brian Lynch, who’ll saddle his first Plate starter, was beyond impressed with the Marine stunner. “He had trained so well coming into the race, so I wasn’t really surprised that he performed so strongly. He was really motivated and we were happy to see that. We made hay while the sun was shining.”
Malakoff wasn’t quite so dominant, however, when he broke his maiden, April 30, at Woodbine, driving clear late to win by 1 ½-lengths at 1 1/16-miles. “He battled ‘shins’ almost the whole time he was at Gulfstream,” reasoned Lynch, of the chestnut who finished third and second, respectively, in two starts at the Hallandale, Florida oval. “So he was entitled to be a little sluggish in the race he broke his maiden. But he got the race he needed.”
A lifetime earner of $152,880, Malakoff comes into his biggest race in good order, hoping to give owner/breeder Frank Stronach a Queen’s Plate ‘hat trick’ (the stable won the Plate with Basqueian in 1994 and Awesome Again in 1997). “He’s a really professional horse,” noted Lynch. “And he’s become even more professional as time as gone on. He’s just a cool horse to be around. He has no vices.”
What Malakoff does have, though, is a healthy appetite. “He does love to eat, that’s for sure,” said Lynch, of the horse that was listed at 20-1 in the Queen’s Plate Winterbook.
He’s coming into the Plate off a career-best performance, one that earned him a 92 Beyer Figure (Daily Racing Form speed rating), but Lynch knows it’s hardly an easy task to get the job done in the 1 ¼-mile classic. “Hopefully, he can produce another big effort. Todd (Kabel) is a good, strong rider. They just seem to click. But they don’t just hand you the $1-million, you have to earn it the old-fashioned way.”
“This is the Canadian Kentucky Derby,” offered Lynch, an Aussie. “I think there’s some great horse racing in Canada and I’m looking forward to it. He’s doing super, there’s a lot of anticipation. I wouldn’t trade spots with anybody.”
Malakoff concluded his final Plate preparations with a bullet six-furlong move in 1:13 2/5, handily over the main strip on Sunday.
Pipers Thunder
He made some noise in the Plate Trial, June 4. Now, Pipers Thunder will try to rumble to victory in the $1,000,000 Queen’s Plate. He’ll also be attempting to give his connections, Robert Krembil’s Chiefswood Stable and trainer Eric Coatrieux, their second Plate triumph in just three years. The stable’s Niigon won the 2004 edition of the ‘Gallop for the Guineas’, their first stakes win, turning the tables on favoured A Bit O’Gold, after finishing second to him in the Plate Trial.
This year’s scenario is a little different, though. Firstly, Pipers Thunder won the Plate Trial rather impressively, rallying from just off the pace to take command turning for home, then holding all comers safe down the lane in the mile and one-eighth test, winning by a length over Plate rivals Ascot Bill and Edenwold, last year’s Sovereign Award winner. He’ll be trying to become the 23rd horse to win both the Trial and the Plate. Alydeed was the last to do so, in 1992.
Secondly, the two favourites for this year’s Plate (Wanna Runner and Malakoff) did not even compete in the Trial, while in 2004, Niigon and A Bit O Gold went toe-to-toe in both.
He’s the second most lightly-raced Plate entrant in the field, with three career starts, behind only Eugene Melnyk’s Sterwins, who has started only twice. In modern times (since 1956), Awesome Again, in 1997, is the only horse to win the Plate off only two previous career outings.
Pipers Thunder is a son of 1995 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner Thunder Gulch, out of Lone Piper, who was purchased by Chiefswood at the 1997 Keeneland yearling sale for $220,000. He is her fourth (and best) foal while Thunder Gulch’s most impressive performers to date have been Point Given, the top three-year-old in the U.S. in 2001 and 2000 Breeders’ Cup winner Spain.
“He was impressive in the Trial,” said Coatrieux, who readily admits it’s a challenging assignment for Pipers Thunder. “I probably didn’t really expect that kind of an effort, but he’s an improving horse.”
Pipers Thunder didn’t get to the races last year. Owner Krembil said the horse’s development was delayed by “soft tissue issues.” It was nothing really serious, but enough so that we had to ease off training, so he didn’t run as a two-year-old. I’m not sure how he’ll show up in the Plate, but we think he’s on the uptake, in terms of getting better each time out. He’s really inexperienced because we had to ease up on him last year.”
The bay colt debuted at Gulfstream Park in a mile maiden test March 19, but finished a well-beaten sixth. “He came out of the gate a little slow and wound up in the back of the pack,” recalled Coatrieux. “We didn’t expect too much out of him in that race. I did plan to run him at Keeneland in April. He worked a half-mile but after we scoped him and he didn’t scope well. He wasn’t ready.”
Pipers Thunder returned to Ontario with the Chiefswood string and promptly won a maiden mile and one-sixteenth affair, May 13. Then came his impressive Plate Trial performance. “He’s certainly got enough of a foundation under him for the Plate distance,” continued Coatrieux. “He’s coming up to the race as good as I can expect him to be. It’s tough to say (how he’ll do). He won the prep, but the Plate’s a different race. That horse of Stronach’s (Malakoff), he’ll be tough to beat for sure. He ran well in the Marine.”
Added Krembil, “I don’t know how much he learned from that (Plate Trial), but we were quite pleased with the race. There are some good horses that are going to show up on Plate Day that weren’t there in the Trial. All I can say is that I think we have a legitimate shot. I wouldn’t want to go in if we didn’t.”
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