COUNTRY STAR MARKS TRAIL TO KENTUCKY
Article taken from The Australian
By Tony Arrold
LESS than a handful of fillies have won the Kentucky Derby in its
130-year-plus history, but Country Star is one who could, come the
first Saturday of May 2008, join Genuine Risk and Winning Colours
as the select females of the modern era to have done so.
So much water is to flow under the bridge between now and the
Churchill Downs classic, but it is a dream the connections of
Country Star can cling to as 2007 rings its way to a seasonal
close.
Trainer Bobby Frankel has been in the game, and at the top of his
profession, for too long now to lock into any conviction that his
newest star of the stable is the next Secretariat.
Likewise, Country Star's breeder-owners Robert and Janice McNair
fully appreciate what it takes to have a thoroughbred win at the
highest level.
Into the mix throw jockey Rafael Bejarano, not quite with the
profile of the trainer-owners but a rising influence on the US
jockey scene, ranking fifth for 2007.
Bejarano calls it as he sees it and he clearly sees Country Star as
something rather special, given his response to a question on the
filly's potential for 2008 after she had won a feature at Hollywood
Park, Los Angeles, 10 days ago.
"Kentucky Oaks?" he moaned in feigned horror. "She's going to be
the next Kentucky Derby winner!"
Country Star had just turned in a dominating performance in the
Group I $US425,500 ($491,000) Starlet Stakes (8 1/2 furlongs, about
1900m) at Hollywood Park on December 15, with many rating the
effort equal to any other feature race winner of the same age-sex
previously this year.
This year's Starlet Stakes was run on the synthetic Cushion Track
circuit and Country Star rounded them up by running widest on the
final turn and hitting the line almost three lengths clear of the
More Than Ready filly Grace And Power, a stakes winner at
Meadowlands at her previous start. Landaluce Stakes winner The Gold
Noodle was a further two lengths away third, with Group I Del Mar
Debutant Stakes winner Set Play three lengths away fourth in a
field of 10.
Bejarano provided an enthusiastic report to Frankel, stating how
much the filly had improved since he had ridden her previously,
when she had won the Group I Alcibiades Stakes at Keeneland in
early October in similar style with a wide, raking run into the
final turn before going on to victory by one length.
That win came on Keeneland's synthetic Polytrack and followed
Country Star's debut second, on grass, at Belmont in
mid-September.
Country Star, then, is yet to be tested on dirt, the most widely
used surface in the US and what Kentucky Derby aspirants will run
on in May.
Country Star's debut second, incidentally, was behind Backseat
Rhythm, who franked the form, taking minor placings in Group Is at
her next two outings, including a third to Indian Blessing in the
Breeders Cup Juvenile.
Frankel holds the view that Country Star is the best two-year-old
filly he's handled. The multiple Eclipse award winning trainer said
a little more of Country Star's sire, EMPIRE
MAKER, when that colt took the 2003 Group I Belmont Stakes,
stating that EMPIRE MAKER was the best he'd
trained.
Country Star is a first crop member of EMPIRE
MAKER, who stands at $US100,000 at his owner-breeder Prince
Khaled Abdullah's Juddmonte Farm in Kentucky.
EMPIRE MAKER is by Fappiano's Kentucky Derby
winner and noted sire Unbridled from Prince Khalid's outstanding
broodmare, the recently pensioned Toussaud, by El Grand Senor.
A Group I winner herself under Frankel, Toussaud has a noted place
in the American Stud Book as the mother of four Group I winners:
EMPIRE MAKER, Honest Lady (by Seattle Slew),
Chester House (Mr Prospector) and Chiselling (Woodman). Honest
Lady, the first foal of Toussaud, was a brilliant two-year-old
who promoted thoughts of a Kentucky Derby goal, but as her
career progressed it was found that her class lay in her speed
and that left her with distance limitations. She was later to
run second in a Group I Breeders Cup Sprint (1200m).
EMPIRE MAKRER was thought to be good enough to be sent
off favourite for the 2003 Kentucky Derby - that rating having been
won by a hollow win of almost 10 lengths in the Group I Florida
Derby.
Frankel's expectations suffered doubly when his colt was beaten by
the blue-collar hero Funny Cide at Churchill Downs. EMPIRE
MAKER had trounced that gelding in the Group I Wood
Memorial, his final prep to the Kentucky Derby, Funny Cide also won
the Preakness Stakes, with Empire Maker stepping aside. But the
latter resurfaced at Belmont to outstay the Distorted Humor gelding
in the final and longest leg of the US triple crown.
EMPIRE MAKER ran on eight times and is Florida
Derby-Wood Memorial-Belmont Stakes treble gave him the distinction
of being the only triple Group I winner of his classic generation
in 2003.
Country Star is the product of Rings A Chime, Group I winner of the
Ashland Stakes and daughter of Metfield, a Group III winning son of
US triple crown hero Seattle Slew.
Rings A Chime is the major performer among 11 foals left by
Outofthebluebell, a rugged competitor who amassed over $US200,000
even though she won just one minor stakes race in a 36-start
career.
Outofthebluebell was one of the more notable runners left by Red
Ryder, who did not race but was given his chance at stud, being a
brother to the remarkable Mr Prospector, the great grandsire of
EMPIRE MAKER.
Date:
24 December 2007