Eagle Poise snapped an eight race losing streak after a win in the Grade 3 Valedictory Stakes at Woodbine
The 5-year-old horse, Eagle Poise, made things real interesting when he rallied down the stretch to out finish the stubborn runner, Harrods Creek, to win the Canadian Grade 3 Valedictory Stakes by a head at Woodbine race course on 4 December, 2011.
The son of Empire Maker, out of mare Reams of Verse by Nureyev, Eagle Poise landed his first graded stakes win for Riverdee Stable and trainer Graham Motion after the $150,388 event got upgraded to grade 3 status this year.
Eagle Poise is one of those horses, who can size up proceedings pretty well right from the outset, and sometimes his calculative runs payoff and sometimes they don’t, but on this occasion the preciseness of his run left many baffled.
In the 1 ¾ mile event, Eagle Poise ran down opponents while running the marathon distance over the synthetic surface of Woodbine, which Eagle Poise has seemed to find a liking of recently, under jockey Peter Husbands, who went on to notch his 23rd
stakes win of the campaign.
Graham Motion trained horse, Eagle Poise, broke well under Husbands but got pulled back to dwell in the rear to slowly build up his momentum for the finale.
The last year’s Valedictory second place finisher, Eye of the Leopard to winner Pool Play was made the 2 to 1 favourite this time around, despite the fact Afleet Again was participating in the race as well, who was coming off a win in the Grade 2 Breeders’
Cup Marathon last month.
Although Eagle Poise got the best of Eye of the Leopard in his last race, an allowance claimer at Woodbine over a distance of 1 5/8 miles on 11 November, 2011.
Sent off as the third choice, Eagle Poise closed in on his opponents from third place around the bend coming off the pace. It was an eye catching run down the stretch as he drew even with Harrods Creek leaving behind the outsider 36 to 1 Getta Rhythm.
In the final 100 yards, Eagle Poise seized the advantage as he won the race covering the distance in 2 minutes and 57.62 seconds while breaking the poly track record at Woodbine which was 2 minutes and 58.27 set by Marsh Side in the 2006 edition of the Valedictory.
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