The three-year-old trotting filly Unefoisdansmavie seems like she’s got a confusing, unpronounceable name, until you find out why she was given that name -- then it all fits
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The daughter of Revenue S-Peace To The World’s name roughly translates to “Once In A Lifetime” and she will start in the $299,050 Hudson Filly Trot at Yonkers Raceway on Saturday, July 10. She was fourth in her elimination race last Saturday. She has won three of her last five starts, including a New Jersey Sire Stakes division on June 3 at the Meadowlands in a career best 1:56.
Unefoisdansmavie set her lifetime mark of 1:56 in a New Jersey Sire Stakes division at Meadowlands Racetrack.
Unefoisdansmavie (said with silent ‘s’ throughout) was bred, named and trained as a two-year-old by the late Ron Turcotte Sr., who died in March 2009. She was sold to her current connections, trainer Peter Kleinhans and co-owner AJKS Racing, in March of this year. Ron Turcotte Jr. says the filly was born on the family’s Howell, New Jersey farm.
“My father pulled her out of the mare, right from day one,” he recalled. “She was small, but she always had a lot of fight. We used to laugh when my dad was going with her and she’d take off 100 miles an hour. He always said how fast she’d be and she was down to 2:55 when my father passed away.
“I took over with her, and it got a little tough for me. As time went on, I said to myself that it wasn’t the same without my dad and it just got tougher and tougher and tougher. He always liked her. I loved her. My heart wasn’t following the game as much as I should have. With him gone, I was getting more sad going through the barn working with the horses.”
Turcotte made the decision to sell her last spring.
“I sold her; I knew she’d be good,” he said. “I knew she was good the first time I took her over to Freehold and schooled her myself. I schooled her in 2:05, in hand, with older horses and she went right by them. I qualified her and she won, then she qualified again and got roughed up a little, she was pushed in three deep, but that didn’t hurt her.
“Then we raced on February 18 at Freehold against R Sam. I knew he was a good horse; I watched him qualify and I knew he was really good, that horse has a lot of capabilities. I was wheel to wheel with R Sam and Jeff Gregory and we were just sitting there chirping to the horses and they went right to the wire.”
The filly was second by a neck in 2:03.1.
“Jeff leaned over and said, ‘That’s a nice little filly.’ I said, ‘Yeah, she’s a gamer, isn’t she?’”
It was her first race at the Meadowlands when Turcotte really knew he had something.
“She raced back at the Meadowlands on March 4,” he said. “I didn’t think they were going to the half in 1:02, I must have got to the half in 1:04. I was sitting there in the back, bottled up. There were horses that didn’t leave well, some stuck on the outside and I was stuck in the back. I didn’t want to bang her up first time at the big track. I said, ‘Holy Cow, we’re walking.’ I saw the field getting away and I had room to come out. I didn’t say a word to her, she trotted in :57 flat or :56.4 the second half. At the wire, she was flying and just past the wire I went by everybody. She didn’t stop herself, I had to stop her.
“My dad always said she had guts and my dad named that filly 'Once In My Lifetime' in French. He always wanted to have that one more good one before he was out. He wasn’t feeling good prior to that year [2009] and that’s why he named her that. We couldn’t keep him out of the barn, it was, ‘No, no, no, that filly needs me.’”
Following the elder Turcotte’s death, decisions had to be made on what to do with the little trotting filly that could.
“I talked to my mom and said, ‘We don’t have the money to put her in the stakes and we don’t have the money to lay out for what she’s going to need,’” Turcotte said. “I had the choice to either take a really nice filly and make her an overnight horse or let somebody that I thought would be a good fit for her do it. I refused eight people that offered to buy her -- not for sale. When Peter Kleinhans’ people reached out to me, I knew that was the way for her. They run a good ship; they take care of their horses. Their horses come back; they’re not rough on them.
“I told them all the ins and outs about her, all her habits, everything went with her. I told them to just do me a favor and take care of her. It was a tough thing for me, I love horses and I bet my father’s really mad at me, but I had to pick a road. The horses are not what they once were to me.”
The purchase price was mid-five figures, Turcotte said.
“She’s almost paid for and she’s got $42,000 now, so it was under that,” he said. “She’s small and I know when you have to turn around and say does this money end up to that? I knew what she’d be and where she’d go, but the money wasn’t there [to pay stake fees].”
Turcotte will travel to Yonkers to see the filly race.
“I’m going to go to the final myself with my son, he’s Ron Turcotte III; we’ll be there to root her on,” he said. “I hope she wins; I only wish the best for them. As long as she’s racing, part of my dad is still racing and that means more to me than anything.”
Kleinhans hoped the Hudson Filly Trot elimination had turned out a bit better for his filly.
“I was very disappointed with the way she kind of quit near the wire,” he said. “I thought she was going to win. I’m not sure what happened there; I thought she was a little better than that race. I don’t know. She had a little mucous when we scoped, but I’m not sure that’s an excuse.
“I think she’s better on the smaller track, she gets around it perfectly. She’s got no problems on turns and she’s a small filly and just very handy. I saw her the first couple races of her life on a half-mile track when Turcotte had her and she was great on the half. We were looking forward to racing her on the half. I just thought when she pulled out of the hole, she’d roll right by, but she just hit a wall, so I hope she doesn’t repeat that in the final.
“Obviously, we really like her; we supplemented her, which looks like it’s kind of crazy. But if she gets third or better, she’s paid for the supplement [$30,000] so we’ll see.”
Kleinhans purchased the filly with his partner Anthony Altomonte.
“One of the things we do is watch every replay of every horse we’re considering,” Kleinhans said. “One of the races we watched, she was second by a neck to R Sam, who’s a colt who they just turned down $150,000 for right before that race [on February 18 at Freehold] so we just were very impressed by that race. She’s just got a great attitude and she’s just very handy and very racy. She just loves to race.”
Staking will be a touch-and-go process for Unefoisdansmavie, who was very lightly staked by her prior connections.
“She’s not eligible to much of anything,” Kleinhans said. “That’s why we had to pay $30,000 to supplement her to this. Really, all she was paid up to was New Jersey Sire Stakes and the Helen Smith. I really like her, she's sound and she’s quick. I think she can do anything, but the ideal would be to draw the rail and get a two-hole trip. That would be the perfect scenario. The draw is about 80 percent of this race.”
This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.