While most eyes and ears may be fastened upon what world champion Downbytheseaside will accomplish this season, trainer Brian Brown has two fillies prepared to step upon center stage in Friday’s (April 21) $40,000 James Hackett Memorial final at Miami Valley Raceway in Type A Grey and Glorious Intent. Each young lady is poised to make her presence known and seeks to have her own successful season.
“Ronnie’s (Burke) filly (Rosemary Rose) is very, very tough,” said Brown. “Mike (Wilder, her driver) was just sitting on her last week and the whole field is quite good. I think Type A Grey is sharp right now, but Glorious Intent might need a race a two to tighten her up.”
Type A Grey, a daughter of Art Official-Just My Type, was purchased by Bruce Trogdon’s Emerald Highlands Farm for $20,000 at the 2015 Standardbred Horse Sale at Harrisburg.
Type A Grey, winning at Miami Valley
The striking filly has collected $109,022 from a record of 8-6-0-0 and was dominant in Ohio Sire Stakes company last year at age two, prior to experiencing some difficulties at the end of the season in the $250,000 Ohio Sire Stakes final and a $60,900 division of the Ohio Breeders Championship series.
She will leave from post position two with Chris Page in the sulky and is rated 7-2 on the morning line in the field of nine.
“In those two races she tied up,” Brown said. “But she is doing very well right now and we have had no problems with her since. She is in very good form right now and training very well. As I said, this is a very tough field of fillies, but we think she should race well.”
Not only will Type A Grey have to contend with the undefeated Rosemary Rose, who is a perfect six-for-for-six in her career and is the deserving early favourite at 5-2 (Mike Wilder, post six), she will have to compete against Rosas Touch (Ron Burke, Josh Sutton, post three, 9-2), Ohio Sire Stakes victress Zoe Ellasen (Ron Potter, Ronnie Wrenn Jr., post eight, 12-1), as well as her stablemate Glorious Intent (Kayne Kauffman, post four, 5-1).
Glorious Intent, a daughter of No Pan Intended-Rock For Glory, competes as a homebred for Trogdon and enters this contest off a very solid triumph in last Friday’s eliminations. The filly, who is the result of four generations of breeding by Trogdon, demonstrated ability last year as a two-year-old as an Ohio Sire Stakes winner, before encountering some issues of her own.
Glorious Intent, winning at Miami Valley
She has banked $40,500 with a resume of 6-3-1-0, hails from a stalwart female family, just like Type A Grey and also happens to share the same color coat. Trogdon has an affinity for gray horses and Glorious Intent is the result of his passion for that particular shade.
“Glorious Intent’s line has become my favourite 'gray' foundation,” he said. “It started when I bought the Laag gray broodmare Faded Glory. I remembered her racing for Jack Darling and winning the American-National (1995). I bought her from the reject pile at Harrisburg after her first couple foals when she was still fairly young. She was not very big but very pretty and had great conformation and a nice head.
“Faded Glory produced some nice foals for me, most of which I sold but I kept one beautiful gray The Panderosa filly, Bound For Glory. Bound For Glory was trained by Tony O'Sullivan in Ontario back in the day when I did all my racing at Mohawk. We loved her -- she gave everything she had -- and earned over $300,000 while finishing second in the (2005) Fan Hanover.
“I would like to have had some more gray fillies from her mother but it wasn't to be. One morning I went to feed her group and Faded Glory was laying in the pine trees behind my house. I thought she was asleep and went over to rouse her; she was dead. I looked at her feet -- they were black -- as she was killed by lightning. That was the only time that has ever happened to me; sad day because I wanted more out of her.”
Brown feels the problems Glorious Intent endured last season may be behind her.
“She was cross-firing on us,” Brown said. “The time off (winter vacation) has seemed to help her, but I think she might need some time to catch up with the rest of the fillies in this field. They just have more racing experience than she does.”
Trogdon also possesses another three-year-old filly that Brown is conditioning with some talent, although unfortunately, she is a bay rather than a gray.
“My remaining gray line is from a gray mare that I bought as a weanling at Harrisburg many years ago,” he said. “Soggy Dragon raced well for us and produced a powerful bay Allamerican Ingot filly Soggy Britches that raced very well for us. She is a 1:48 producer and we are racing her daughter Blazin Britches right now. She is not gray either, but is a fabulous looker and may end up being the fastest filly I ever had; she's a beast. She didn't stay sound at two so she lived most of the summer out in that field behind my house with Glorious Intent and Type A Grey; quite a field.
“I turn my two-year-old fillies out in that field because it has 100 well-spaced, 70-foot tall white pine shade trees that I planted as saplings 40 years ago. It’s the same field where poor Faded Glory met her demise.”
This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.