After remaining dormant for nearly a year, part-owner Jerry Silva has told Trot Insider that his world champion trotter, Snow White, is on the comeback trail
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“Right now the plan is to bring her back racing,” says Silva, adding that she is about five or six weeks away from qualifying.
In 2007, Snow White established herself as the richest and fastest freshman trotting filly in the history of harness racing. She recorded 11 victories in 14 starts earning over $1.2 million in purses. The daughter of Self Possessed – Moms Millionaire, who earned year-end divisional honours in both Canada and United States, picked up wins in a variety of major stakes including the New Jersey Sires Stakes Final, the Merrie Annabelle Final, the Oakville Stakes, the Goldsmith Maid and the Breeders Crown. Her mark of 1:52.4 taken at Lexington set a world record for two-year-old trotters on a mile track.
After undergoing throat surgery in the winter, Snow White returned to the track the following year and won three of six starts including the Del Miller Memorial pushing her yearly earnings to $180,905, but endured issues with soundness and as a result her sophomore campaign ended in mid-August.
Silva says Snow White has since resumed training with Kevin Lare in Delaware and most recently the four-year-old bay has trotted in 2:02 with a last quarter in :28 seconds. “It doesn’t get us there yet, but we’re on the way,” he says.
Snow White will head up to the Meadowlands once she returns to form. Silva says the plan is to keep her at the big tracks for her four-year-old year.
“I don’t think there’s many stakes left for an open trotting mare. Most of the races are early so I think we’d have to judge that campaign [as we go]. If she qualifies on August 1st there’s not too much so maybe we’ll just race her at Lexington and then give her some time off and bring her back for the fall meet. I’m not sure yet, one step at a time. She’s so valuable and so good that we can’t really do everything.”
While Snow White has been quiet on the racing scene for the past year, she was in the spotlight in January when Silva and his partners, North State Street Stable and Harness The Power, entered her in the Tattersalls Sale at the Meadowlands then subsequently decided to withdraw her announcing that they intended to breed her in the 2009 season.
“We felt that the market wasn’t strong enough for a horse of her quality and we wanted to bring her back racing and own her ourselves,” explains Silva.
“We, like everybody else, hope that we can get her back and make her the two-year-old champion that she was. We felt that she deserves a second chance.”
As far as her future in the breeding shed goes, Silva says, “Right now our aim is to bring her back to be a race horse and to be sound. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”