Reeves Thoroughbred Racing and Tango Uniform Racing’s Feel Glorious, a four-time stakes winner of nearly $500,000 in 21 career races, continues the chase for an elusive graded victory in Saturday’s $150,000 Gallorette (G3) at Pimlico Race Course.
The 70th running of the 1 1/16-mile Gallorette for fillies and mares 3 and up on the grass is among 10 stakes, six graded, worth $2.25 million in purses on a spectacular 14-race program headlined by the 146th renewal of the Preakness Stakes (G1), Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown.
Other graded-stakes on the card are the $250,000 Dinner Party (G2) for 3-year-olds and up on the turf; $200,000 Chick Lang (G3) for 3-year-olds and $150,000 Maryland Sprint (G3) for 3-year-olds and up, both going six furlongs; and $100,000 UAE President Cup (G1) for Arabian horses.
First race post time is 10:30 a.m.
Feel Glorious is trained by New York-based Christophe Clement, who won the Gallorette with Tresoriere in 1998 and Ozone Bere in 2006. The 5-year-old Bated Breath mare has raced twice this year, closing to be third by a neck in the one-mile Honey Fox (G4) Feb. 27 at Gulfstream Park behind two-time Grade 1-winning multi-millionaire Got Stormy and Grade 3 winner Zofelle.
“She can beat both those horses. She’s as good as they are and she can handle them,” co-owner Dean Reeves said. “We don’t duck anybody.”
Second by 2 ½ lengths in the March 27 Sand Springs at Gulfstream, her most recent outing, Feel Glorious won twice in six 2020 starts, both in stakes at the Gallorette distance – the Forever Together in November at Aqueduct and Perfect Sting in August at Saratoga.
Feel Glorious also won two stakes in 2019, the Memories of Silver and Winter Memories respectively in the spring and fall at Aqueduct, once she arrived in the U.S. after beginning her career in England and Germany where she was second in the 2018 Grosser Preis Soldier Hollow Youngster Cup.
According to Equibase, Feel Glorious was purchased at Tattersall’s horses of racing age sale for $174,638 in August 2018. She has been second in the 2019 Soaring Softly (G3) and Sands Point (G2) and third in the 2020 New York (G2) and Matchmaker (G3), with earnings of $492,209 for Reeves, best known as the owner of 2013 Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) winner that was retired in 2014 with a bankroll of more than $5.6 million.
“She’s been all over it. She has run and competes with the best fillies and mares out there and she’s been so consistent,” Reeves said. “She’s got the best kick of any horse I believe I’ve ever been around. When she turns for home, she’s so determined. She comes to play every time.
“She’s just been a pleasure,” he added. “How she hasn’t gotten a graded stake yet I don’t know, but she’s going to get one, maybe more. She’s very, very game every time. I’m excited to see her race this weekend. I think it’ll be a good spot for and we’re looking forward to it.”
Alex G. Campbell Jr.’s 5-year-old homebred Mean Mary will be seeking her fourth career graded-stakes victory, stringing together three straight in the La Prevoyante (G3), Orchid (G3) and New York – the latter over Feel Glorious – in the winter and summer of 2020 in Florida and New York.
Second by a neck to Rushing Fall, 2020’s champion turf mare, in the 1 1/8-mile Diana (G1) last August at Saratoga, Mean Mary hasn’t raced since running seventh, beaten 2 ½ lengths, in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1) Nov. 7 at Keeneland.
“We gave her the winter off after the Breeders’ Cup. My original thought was to go to the New York Handicap [but] it’s a tough trip to go a mile and a quarter off a break,” trainer Graham Motion said. “I thought this might make more sense for her. She certainly has enough turn of foot to run a mile and a sixteenth.”
Mean Mary has shown an ability to relax on the front end in longer races, such as the 1 ½-mile La Prevoyante, 1 3/8-mile Orchid and 1 ¼-mile New York, but found herself up close to a lively pace in the Breeders’ Cup along with Irish-bred Cayenne Pepper before French import Audarya came on late to spring a 17-1 upset.
“She’s hasn’t done much wrong. I thought she had a tough trip in the Breeders’ Cup. She ended up on the lead or close to it, and then she kind of got chased which just made it tough for her. A European horse, which I never imagined would kind of go with her early,” Motion said. “I thought that was a tough trip, we gave her some time off and she’s done well coming back.”
Motion also entered Al Shaqab homebred Tuned, who has one win in seven starts since coming to the U.S. from France in the fall of 2019. Following her allowance victory at Keeneland, the 5-year-old mare has run second or third four times and has never been lost by more than 3 ¾ lengths in any of her domestic races. She ran second to French Group 3 winner Pocket Square April 7 in her most recent race.
“She’s pretty consistent and hasn’t been beaten very far in her races,” Motion said. “She was unlucky the other day at Keeneland. She ran against a really nice horse in the allowance race that day, but there has to be a stake somewhere with her name on it, I believe.”
Motion’s previous Gallorette wins have come with Ultra Brat (2018) and Film Maker (2005).
Chad Brown, who trains Pocket Square, will send out the pair of Flighty Lady and Great Island. Peter Brant’s Flighty Lady was bred in Ireland, raced in France and won a 1 1/16-mile Aqueduct allowance April 3 in her U.S. debut, while Alpha Delta Stables’ Great Island is exiting a head victory in an off-the-turf edition of the 1 1/8-mile Suwannee River Feb. 6 at Gulfstream.
Brown won the Gallorette with Zagora (2012), Pianist (2013) and Watsdachances (2015).
Phipps Stable homebred Vigilantes Way is set to start for Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey, having run third in the 1 1/16-mile Dahlia April 24 at Pimlico. The 4-year-old daughter of Medaglia d’Oro became a stakes winner last December in the 1 1/16-mile Tropical Park Oaks at Gulfstream.
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