BY GULFSTREAM PARK PRESS OFFICE (Edited)
HALLANDALE BEACH, FL—LNJ Foxwoods and Church Street Stable’s Finding Strength was the latest of trainer Michael Yates’ five juvenile winners during the recently concluded Royal Palm Meet at Gulfstream Park. With the dawn of the Sunshine Meet this weekend, Yates steps her up to meet a group that includes stakes winner Lennilu and pricey filly Love Like Lucy in Saturday’s $100,000 Desert Vixen at Gulfstream Park.
The Desert Vixen for fillies shares the spotlight on an 11-race program with the $100,000 Dr. Fager, each sprinting six furlongs, to lead off the 44th edition of the $1.2 million Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Owners’ Association Florida Sire Stakes series for 2-year-olds by accredited Florida stallions.
Named for the two-time champion and 1979 Hall of Fame mare that won 13 of 28 career starts from 1972-75, the Desert Vixen is the first of three legs in the Florida Sire Stakes filly division, followed by the $200,000 Susan’s Girl at seven furlongs on Oct. 18 and $300,000 My Dear Girl going a mile-and-a-sixteenth on Nov. 29.
Yates won the 2020 Desert Vixen with Stonehedge homebred Go Jo Jo Go in her fourth career start.
By Ocala Stud’s leading Florida sire Khozan, Finding Strength will be racing for the third time, having run third in debut in July before drawing away to an impressive four-and-a-quarter length score sprinting five furlongs Aug. 17. Both outings came at Gulfstream.
The wisdom gained in her unveiling, where she came away near the rear flight but rallied on the outside to get into contention to wind up a neck out of second, proved invaluable when stretched out to five-and-a-half furlongs for her graduation.
“I think the experience [helped her], just racing experience itself. I don’t feel like we had her cranked to the hilt first time out [but] I felt like she was prepared well enough,” Yates said. “With the 2-year-olds, I’m really not trying to emphasize a win first time with a lot of these horses because it’s more about just developing them.
“She kind of fell right into that. She was prepared well enough to just go over there and I felt she was ready for a good effort,” he added. “I thought she broke a little tardy and found herself a little too much to do, but finished really well. I just think with the racing experience she took a step forward.”
Finding Strength was purchased for $60,000 during Fasig-Tipton’s Kentucky yearling sale last fall and sent to Tristan De Meric in Ocala to develop. She ultimately landed with Yates, whose success with young horses includes six Florida Sire Stakes wins highlighted by Rated by Merit’s 2024 sweep of the colt division.
“[The owners] reached out to me if I would like to take her to train. They sent the filly in from Tristan in Ocala and she had a really good foundation under her. We finished her gate work and now we’re off to the races,” Yates said. “I think she’ll continue to move forward as the races get longer.
“The 2-year-olds, they kind of all come in in different stages and, of course, when we have the stallion stakes-nominated horses, that’s what we’re focusing on. We’re trying to make that work without overdoing it with them,” he added. “As far as the specific training, I really don’t do anything different with the fillies and the colts in particular, just pretty much move forward with them as they let me.”
Finding Strength is out of Strength in Unity, by To Honor and Serve and was bred in Florida by Elizabeth LaPierre and Jennifer Given. She has earned $40,100 in her two races.
Jesus Rios is named to ride Finding Strength, rated the 3-1 third choice on the morning line, from post two in a field of seven.
Yates also entered Henry Mast Jr.’s Copper Creole but was uncertain whether the chestnut daughter of Cajun Breeze would make the quick turnaround from her Aug. 30 debut at Gulfstream where she ran third, beaten a length, in a five-furlong maiden claimer on the grass.
“She was way off the pace and finished well,” Yates said of her unveiling. “The stallion stakes was a short field so I talked with the owner and said, ‘Let’s go ahead and enter her and see,’ because race day was entry day as well, which makes it difficult to do things like that because you have to enter if you want to try. So, we’re just going to see how the week goes with her and go from there.”
Copper Creole is out of Driving Mrs B, by Factum and was bred by Marilyn Campbell’s Stonehedge LLC. She is graduate of the 2024 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Winter Mixed Sale where McMahon and Hill Bloodstock as agent purchased her for $6,000 out of the Summerfield consignment.
At 15-1 on the morning line, Copper Creole drew post six with jockey Marcos Meneses.
The 8-5 program favorite is Lennilu, trained and co-owned by Patrick Biancone, who indicated he is leaning toward running the Leinster filly in Sunday’s $1 million Untapable going six-and-a-half furlongs on the grass at Kentucky Downs.
Lennilu won at first asking in a four-and-a-half-furlong maiden special weight April 6 at Keeneland, then came back to take the $100,000 Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies sprinting five furlongs May 10 on the Gulfstream turf. That effort earned her an automatic berth to Royal Ascot, where she ran third by less than two lengths in the five-furlong Queen Mary (G2), also on grass, June 18. This weekend will be her first start since returning from England.
“She’s ready to run. We’ll decide if we want to travel or not,” Biancone said. “She’s very talented. After she worked in the morning I said she’d probably be better on the turf than dirt, but she did win on dirt, too. She’s talented. When they’re talented they’ll go on anything.
“She has a very great team of owners. After the race at Ascot, we decided to give her time to grow and give her time to prepare for the Breeders’ Cup in November,” he added. “Now, it’s time to come back and have a race this weekend, then we’ll have another race at the end of September, and then we’ll be ready for the Breeders’ Cup.”
Lennilu is out of Lulu’s Pom Pom, by Pomeroy and was bred in Florida by Helen and Joseph Barbazon. Purchased for $23,000 by Glencrest Farm out of the Abbie Road Farm consignment at the 2024 OBS Winter Mixed Sale, Lennilu has earned $103,289 in her three races.
Biancone also co-owns Desert Vixen entrant Laigina, a first-time starter by Leinster, with Green With MV Racing Stable. The owner-trainer combination won Gulfstream’s six-furlong Proud Man on dirt with promising 2-year-old Florida-bred Diciassette Aug. 9.
“She’s a very nice filly. She worked with [Dr. Fager program favorite] Squire the other day,” Biancone said. “She’s qualified for the race, so we put her in. We’ll see what happens.”
The stablemates drew adjacent stalls in the starting gate, with Lennilu and Romero Maragh in post three and Laigina and Jonathan Ocasio in post four.
Second choice on the morning line at 2-1 is MyRacehorse, Thoroughbred Acquisition Group and Miller Racing’s Love Like Lucy, who fetched $300,000 as a 2-year-old in training at the OBS spring sale in April. Trained by Saffie Joseph Jr., winner of the 2024 Desert Vixen with R Morning Brew in a stakes-record 1:10.85, the daughter of Win Win Win was a popular length-and-three-quarters winner at first asking in a six-furlong state-bred maiden special weight on Aug. 8.
Edgard Zayas, up for her graduation, gets the return call from outermost post seven.
Also entered are Arindel homebred Evolution (8-1), a half-sister to 2023 Desert Vixen runner-up Mist; and Fernando Abreu-owned and trained Happy Feet Hannah, moving from turf to dirt after finishing fourth in debut Aug. 29 at Gulfstream.
Return to the September 5 issue of Wire to Wire
