Goldikova and Workforce to stay in training for 2011
After Goldikova won her third successive Breeders’ Cup Mile, at Churchill Downs on Saturday, her trainer, Freddie Head, said: “I thought I had lived everything as a jockey but this passes everything. It’s a day you have once in your life I suppose.”
Well, may be Head could be finding himself in Groundhog Day mode after it was announced that the mare will remain in training for another season. The five-year-old took her stellar career to new heights with her 12th Group or Grade One victory in the Mile from 21 starts.
At the time it was believed that her owners, Gerard and Alain Wertheimer, were likely to retire her to the breeding sheds, but Head held out the prospect that the Wertheimer brothers might be ready to roll the dice once more. While Goldikova would clearly be a valuable property as a broodmare the brothers realise that she would be hard to replace as a racehorse and, with a collective fortune estimated at around $8billion, money does not have to be foremost on their thinking.
Sepaking to paris-turf.com, Pierre-Yves Bureau, their racing manager, said: "Gerard and Alain Wertheimer have decided to keep her in training after having talked with Freddie Head.
"Last year for the first time she was sent to the stud to wind down during the winter and when she came back she very easily won the Prix d'Ispahan before winning at Royal Ascot, an achievement which was a goal of her owners.
"She will return to the stud for a length that hasn't been determined yet, that will be between two and three months, before she comes back to Chantilly, where her 2011 programme will be decided."
One horse who could be said to have unfinished business with the Breeders’ Cup is Workforce, who will be the first Derby winner to race as a four-year-old since Sir Percy in 2006.
Si r Michael Stoute’s colt was being prepared for the Turf to complete a unique treble, having already won both the Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. However, the trainer and Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager to Prince Khalid Abdullah, both expressed concerns about the state of the turf course, believing that it was too firm.
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