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| Believe You Can (left) wins the Silverbulletday at Fair Grounds Photo: Lou Hodges, Jr., Hodges Photography |
Brereton Jones’ homebred filly, Believe You Can, winner of last fall’s six-furlong Tempted-G3 at Belmont in her fourth start, captured the listed Silverbulletday Stakes at a mile and seventy yards at Fair Grounds on Saturday, in her initial race as a sophomore, and her first around two turns. The Larry Jones trainee had hinted at her mettle in the Tempted, when she “fought tenaciously” while besting Schulyerville-G3 heroine Georgie’s Angel and three other rivals.
Believe You Can showed the same grit in the Silverbulletday, this time seeming to get stronger as the stretch lengthened. She never looked seriously threatened at any stage of the race, winning in wire-to-wire fashion while fending off determined tries from Hard Spun’s graded stakes-placed daughter, Inny Minnie and the even-money favorite Summer Applause. The highly touted Applauding, who set a new track record for six furlongs (1:07.76) in her debut at Keeneland last fall, was a late scratch after developing colic-like symptoms earlier in the day.
In a post-race interview, Larry Jones confided that “we were very confident that she would go long,” adding that he’s penciled in a campaign that would send Believe You Can to the Kentucky Oaks. Based both on her performance yesterday, that doesn’t seem far-fetched.
Brereton Jones probably never imagined he’d find himself in Believe You Can’s winners circle photos, having consigned the dark bay filly to the 2010 Keeneland September sale. He brought her back home to Airdrie when she didn’t meet her reserve, after attracting a final bid of $70,000. Believe You Can is the fourth foal from her unraced dam, El Fasto, a half-sister to the graded stakes winner Classic Elegance (by Carson City
Their sire, Proud Citizen, is a handsome, robust, well-balanced colt who, if he ran to his looks, would have won all his races. I saw Proud Citizen run twice, at Saratoga: in the 2001 Hopeful-G1, in which he finished a lackluster sixth to another son of Gone West, Came Home, and in the 2003 Forego-G1, where he was a tiring sixth to eventual Sprint Champion Aldebaran. Proud Citizen always entered the paddock like he owned the place, and indeed, he came close to being a classic winner, placing in the Derby and finishing third in the Preakness, before suffering a condylar fracture in the Belmont. Though rested for a year by D. Wayne Lukas, Proud Citizen never regained the form he’d shown at two and three, and was ultimately retired at the end of his four-year-old campaign.
From the start, Proud Citizen redeemed himself at stud, like so many sons of the great Gone West. His best foal to-date, Champion Three-Year-Old Filly Proud Spell (out of Pacific Spell, by Langfuhr) was a member of his first crop. Like Proud Spell, Believe You Can is from a Northern Dancer-line mare (by El Prado). Indeed, several of Proud Citizen’s best runners, including Chilean Champion Two-Year-Old Filly Vamo A Galupiar, who won the grassy Megahertz at Santa Anita yesterday, are out of mares or have second dams who are by sons of Northern Dancer, notably Sadler’s Wells.
And that’s no accident, in that Proud Citizen descends from the great foundation mare, Almahmoud, second dam of both Northern Dancer and Halo (sire of Believe You Can’s second dam, Taegu). His fourth dam, Arctic Dancer, is a full sister to Northern Dancer. To-date, Proud Citizen’s best runners have had two or more distant crosses of Almahmoud, and her daughter Natalma.
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| Vamo A Galupiar (Chi) wins the Megahertz at Santa Anita Photo: Benoit Photos |
In 2006, Proud Citizen shuttled to Chile , where he stood one season at Haras Don Alberto, south of Santiago U.S.
Like Proud Spell and Believe You Can, Vamo A Galupiar’s pedigree is fueled by multiple crosses of the blue hen Natalma, whose powerful influence may be the driving force behind Proud Citizen’s seeming emergence as a sire of outstanding fillies. We’ll see.