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SOVEREIGN AWARD NOMINEES 2010

Canadian Thoroughbred sweeps photo category!

CANADIAN THOROUGHBRED MAGAZINE is represented by all 3 photos nominated for the 2010 SOVEREIGN AWARDS – coming up April 1.

That feels good for everyone at the magazine since decisions have to made each month by everyone in charge as to which photos ARE WORTHY OF GOING IN A PUBLICATION THAT TURNS 50 YEARS OLD THIS YEAR!

Congrats to Cindy and Terence Dulay and Tod Marks, an American whose photo of Canadian mare MISS KELLER landed on a forum one day and I happened to find it.

The filly HOOH WHY is nominated categories, trainer Reade Baker has several horses nominated and himself is nominated, and trainer Roger Attfield and Mark Casse are nominated and have a litany of possible award winners.

Congrats to all the nominees (you can see the stories that are nominated further down as well as photos)

The Jockey Club of Canada will host their 36th Annual Sovereign Awards ceremony to honor the Canadian Champions of 2010, on Friday, April 1, 2011, at Woodbine Race Track in Toronto.  Woodbine Entertainment Group will join in the celebration as they get ready to kick-off their 2011 Live Thoroughbred meet on Saturday, April 2, a date which represents the start of Thoroughbred racing in Canada.

In an effort to promote equal opportunity in determining the winners of the 17 race award categories, the voting began January 1, 2011, allowing for statistics for the entire year to be considered.  The finalists and eventual winner were determined using a computerized points system based on each voter’s first, second and third choice in each category.

The 2010 Sovereign Award Finalists, listed alphabetically in each category, are:

Champion Two-Year-Old Filly:

Delightful Mary

Roxy Gap

Wyomia

Champion Two-Year-Old Male:

Blue Laser

Madman Diaries

Rockin Heat

 

Champion Three-Year-Old Filly:

Biofuel

Free Fee Lady

Roan Inish

 

Champion Three-Year-Old Male:

Big Red Mike

Hotep

No Hesitation

 

Champion Older Female:

Hooh Why

Impossible Time

Simply Splendid

 

Champion Older Male:

Sand Cove

Southdale

Stunning Stag

 

Champion Turf Female:

Mekong Melody (IRE)

Miss Keller (IRE)

Perfect Shirl

 

Champion Turf Male:

Grand Adventure

Rahy’s Attorney

Windward Islands

 

Champion Female Sprinter:

Hooh Why

Indian Apple Is

Sugar Again

 

Champion Male Sprinter:

Essence Hit Man

Hollywood Hit

Smokey Fire

 

Outstanding Broodmare:

Destroy

Enchanted Spell

Eye of the Sphynx

 

Outstanding Breeder:

Adena Springs

Eugene Melnyk

Sam-Son Farm

 

Outstanding Owner:

Bear Stables Ltd.

Melnyk Racing Stables Inc.

Sam-Son Farms

 

Outstanding Trainer:

Roger Attfield

Reade Baker

Mark Casse

 

Outstanding Apprentice Jockey:

Brian Cheyne

Omar Moreno

Ryan Pacheco

 

Outstanding Jockey:

Eurico Rosa Da Silva

Patrick Husbands

Chantal Sutherland

 

Media Award Categories:

 

Outstanding Newspaper Story:

Perry Lefko, Memories of the King of Claiming, Down The Stretch Newspaper, December 17, 2010

Jennifer Morrison, Da Silva will have crowd on his side at Prince of Wales, Toronto Star, July 23, 2010

Beverley Smith, Silky Smooth, Not Without the Colour Man, The Globe and Mail, August 17, 2010

 

Outstanding Feature Story:

Perry Lefko, Horse Hugs, Down The Stretch Newspaper, December 17, 2010

Keith McCalmont, Julia Brino: I’m coming back to ride, Down The Stretch Newspaper, January 2010

Jennifer Morrison, Mission Accomplished, The Blood Horse, January 6, 2010

 

Outstanding Photograph:

Terence Dulay, Hang on Big Red Mike, Canadian Thoroughbred, August/September 2010

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Tod Marks, Miss Keller and her Bunny, Canadian Thoroughbred, December 2010

Cindy Pierson Dulay, Catching Seeking The Title, Canadian Thoroughbred, August/September 2010

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Outstanding Film/Video/Broadcast:

CBC Television Network Sports, 2010 Queen’s Plate, CBC Sports, July 4, 2010

ESPN Inc., 2010 Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series, ESPN2, October 16, 2010

Horse Racing Alberta and Whiteiron Productions, 81st Anniversary of the Canadian Derby, TSN, August 21, 2010

the nominated stories from yours truly can be read at:

DAVE WILLMOT STORY http://cs.bloodhorse.com/files/folders/tbh_regionals/entry86977.aspx

EURICO ROSA DA SILVA STORY:

http://www.thestar.com/sports/horseracing/article/839622–da-silva-will-have-crowd-on-his-side-at-prince-of-wales

OTHER NOMINEES FOR FEATURE AND NEWSPAPER:

http://www.downthestretchnewspaper.com/3issue001/page10.html

http://www.downthestretchnewspaper.com/3issue011/page10.html

http://www.downthestretchnewspaper.com/3issue011/page18.html

GLOBE & MAIL nominated STORY: BY BEV. SMITH (can only be accessed if you are registered but here is part of it)

Wayne Mercer worked hidden away every day in a back chamber of the jockeys’ room at Woodbine racetrack, surrounded by gigantic washing machines and 12,000 jelly-bean coloured racing silks.

He was Woodbine’s colour man, and he was a genius at his job for 20 years, pulling the riding colours for jockeys to wear each day, until on Aug. 7, he didn’t show up for work, as he usually does, at 3:30 a.m. It wasn’t like Mercer to be late. The 63-year-old former tool-and-die maker had suffered a massive stroke and died the next day.

Since then, Woodbine employees have been scrambling to fill the hole he’s left in their hearts. And they’re no match for his memory.

The backroom boys called him Stumpy, because he lost a couple of fingers in a tool-and-die accident. In the back room, you’d better have a thick skin because Stumpy could give as good as he got. He was territorial over his colours and not given to losing arguments about them. If Stumpy ever gave you the finger, you were in trouble, said his boss, Bobby Bertrand, clerk of the scales in the jockeys’ room.

“He was by far the best colour man I ever had,” Bertrand said. “He was the most dependable. You give him the guy’s name [the horse owner] and he’d tell you what his colours looked like.”

COL. BRADLEY – GRADE 3 – TWO STRIKES FOR CANADA, plus one MISCHIEF!

fair grounds press notes – by Graham Ross, Staff Writer | January 19, 2011

Nine players will take the field for Saturday’s Grade III Col. E. R. Bradley Handicap over Fair Grounds’ Stall-Wilson turf course, and one of them, Pin Oak Stable’s Strike Again, is the projected 7-2 second choice in the morning line.

The Col. Bradley is one of two graded races among six stakes slated for Saturday’s expanded 13-race Road to the Derby Kickoff Day Presented by Hotel Monteleone, and the other Grade III affair – the 66th renewal of the $100,000 Lecomte Stakes – is the first of a three-race series for sophomores that concludes with the $1 million Grade II Louisiana Derby March 26.

However, getting back to Saturday’s major turf test, it should be noted that Strike Again defeated the Col. Bradley 5-2 favorite Gran Estreno, owned by Feel The Thunder Stable, by three-quarters of a length in their only encounter here earlier this season in the $60,000 Buddy Diliberto Memorial Handicap Dec. 4, and that fact has Strike Again’s trainer Malcolm Forbes hoping his 5-year-old son of Dixie Union can, ah, strike again.

“I hope (Strike Again) runs as well as he did last time,” said Pierce Wednesday morning of his Pin Oak color bearer who will be ridden once again by jockey Miguel Mena, aboard for the Diliberto score. “He has been doing very well since that last race. We gave him his final breeze last Saturday (a half in 48.60) and that went well. I believe Mrs. Abercombie (Pin Oak matron) will be coming in for this race so I hope he runs as well as he did last time for her sake.

“I am afraid of Mark Frostad’s horse among all the other good horses in there,” said Pierce, speaking of Sam-Son Farm’s Red Strike, who was undefeated in two turf starts at Woodbine last summer while Pierce was also based at the Canadian oval. “He looked like he was going to become an outstanding grass horse last summer, and he might still be undefeated if he hadn’t stumbled to his nose leaving the gate in his only start down here (the $60,000 Woodchopper Stakes Dec. 31.) Also, when (Red Strike) finished third in that race down here, the race had been scheduled for the grass but was taken off and run on a sloppy main track. Maybe Mark’s horse just doesn’t like the slop.”

Red Strike is 8-1 in the morning line for Saturday’s Col. Bradley, and the horse will be ridden once again by James Graham, aboard for the Diliberto, who assured that the bad stumble leaving the gate cost him that win.

Rob Cudney Stables and John Gunther’s homebred Midnight Mischief (by Medaglia d’Oro), third choice at 9-2 in the morning line for the Col. Bradley, is conditioned by Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott and arrived from Mott’s Payson Park headquarters in South Florida on Jan. 9.

“He’s an easy horse to ride,” said Mott’s Fair Grounds-based assistant Mike Kaetzel, who was aboard for Midnight Mischief’s local half-mile move in 48 flat on Jan. 15. “I was very happy with his breeze, and he’s been training good since he got here. We wouldn’t run him if Saturday’s race came off the grass, but as long as it stays on, how the turf course is rated won’t matter to him.”

CANADIAN STUFF

FAIRWAY CUVEE, a 4yo first-time starter for Herbert Chambers and trainer Richard Morden, won her debut yesterday at Charles Town at even-money. The daughter of Cuvee, a $9,000 purchase at auction, won for $10,000 claiming by more than 4 lengths in the 4 1/2 furlong event and was not claimed. The filly had a series of very fast workouts at Woodbine and Chalres Town.

EVER YOURS, an Ontario bred by Consolidator – Worshipped, bred by Gail Wood and Bill Diamant, won a $7,000 claiming event later on the card for owner Don Brown and trainer Stephanie Beattie.

MISS OLIVE OIL, a daughter of Roman Ruler out of Canadian stakes winner Valiant Jewel (Buckley Boy) won a maiden allowance by 9 lengths yesterday at Tampa Bay Downs for Anderson Farms and Farrette Marrel. The filly is a Kentucky bred and had previously raced at Keeneland.

Joan Scott trains.

 

THE OBS WINTER MIXED SALE – 35% INCREASE IN AVERAGE!

canadians that bought:

203 CHERRY GROVE 02/M R.F. CREAN 5,500

PATTON’S PLACE, AGENT

267 10 F. BELGRAVIA /SOCIAL SECURITY DAVID CALLAGHAN 4,000

SUE VACEK, AGENT

315 DE’JADE 03/M R.F. CREAN 8,500

SUMMERFIELD, AGENT X

518 10 C. GOTTCHA GOLD /MOUNTRHYTHM MELVYN SNOW 6,000

RON AND LYBBY GAY