SA-bred stablemate Distant Winter posts second win in US.
A glance at the result of Saturday’s Rogers Woodbine Mile Stakes at Woodbine racecourse in Canada shows South Africa’s runner in the race finished in fifth place, exactly midfield, five lengths behind the winner.
To some, that might indicate a moderate effort by One Stripe, SA’s latest great hope on the international stage.
As much as hard facts are a good thing, they are not everything. Context is important, too, especially in horse racing with all its relativity.
When viewing the video of the race, we see a far from ordinary performance by One Stripe.
Ridden by US Hall of Fame jockey John Velasquez, the colt breaks well from No 3 stall and is poised to adopt a good racing position. But, as the field races uphill and into a turn, he is forced to check his stride, shifts inwards, slows, is pushed outwards, and ends up travelling discombobulated and almost last of the nine.
In the short straight, Velasquez gets One Stripe balanced and starts to make up ground. The duo put in a notable finishing burst of speed.
First outing in six months
More context: This was One Stripe’s first competitive outing for six months and followed his export to North America, with all the quarantine, shipping and stress involved.
His new trainer in the US, Graham Motion, warned beforehand that One Stripe had “it all to do” under the circumstances – carrying top weight and having to endure yet another long, cross-border journey.
The outing will have brought him on massively fitness-wise.
Also, his rivals were of high quality and ambition in a Group 1 contest with a “Win and You’re In” prize of entry into the US Breeders’ Cup meeting in November dangling as a carrot.
The winner, Notable Speech owned by the Godolphin giant, won England’s 2000 Guineas Classic in 2024 and was in full racing trim after a recent second in the Jacques le Marois at Deauville in France.
Breeders’ Cup Mile
One Stripe will meet Notable Speech at that Breeders’ Cup fixture – thanks to the former’s Win and You’re In victory in the King’s Plate at Kenilworth in Cape Town in January.
The evidence of the Woodbine Mile video indicates the two horses will be a bit closer together in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Del Mar in California in November.
Motion has praised the strength and gumption of the half dozen or so SA-bred horses he has inherited recently and had more reason to like them after another, Distant Winter, won at the weekend.
Gaynor Rupert’s mare by What A Winter landed the George Rosenberger Memorial, an 1800m race on turf at Delaware Park.
This was Distant Winter’s third US start and her second win at Delaware. She triumphed there in June and followed up with a runner-up finish at Colonial Downs in August.
With Kevin Gomez in the saddle, Distant Winter “stalked the pace while comfortably rated down the backside, rallied on the turn narrowing the gap, engaged the pacesetter in upper stretch when called upon and quickly went clear in convincing fashion”. She crossed the line 3.50 lengths ahead of her six rivals.
A week earlier, Motion sent out SA-bred Gimme A Nother to win a Grade 2 race in California.
