Havre de Grace clocks her first official work this winter at Fair Grounds
Horse of the Year, Havre de Grace was rested after her rigorous award winning 2011 season, and arrived at Fair Grounds on 5th January to prepare ahead of her 2012 debut.
After stalling Havre de Grace in her winter quarters, trainer Larry Jones said that there were still a few weeks to go before Havre de Grace starts working for her 2012 campaign.
Ever since her arrival at the Fair Grounds, Havre de Grace has been galloping regularly.
Her first official work this winter was over three furlongs that she managed covering in 37.80 seconds on 10th February at Fair Grounds with her exercise rider, Jen Brasser.
The trainer is ready his five-year-old Saint Liam mare, out of Easter Bunnette, Havre de Grace’s coming up races.
“It won’t take her long from here, trust me,” said Jones “She gets ready pretty quick. I found that out last year. This time last year we didn’t have her up to anything like a half-mile and the first time we tried to work her at a half-mile she went
53 and four (fifths). She galloped out in 51 and change yesterday. We’re already ahead of last year.
“She’ll probably get on an every-five-or-six-day’s work schedule and she’ll get ready pretty quick,” Jones said. “Probably on a five-day schedule unless it rains. She’ll be steady now.”
The possibilities that Larry Jones is considering for his Eclipse Award winning mare, under the ownership of Fox Hill Farms, are the $100,000 New Orleans Ladies Stakes that is scheduled for 17th March at Fair Grounds racecourse,
to be raced over 1 1/16 miles and also among the prospects is the Grade 2, $400,000 New Orleans Handicap on 1st April, at about 1 1/8 miles.
There is a strong chance that, Havre de Grace, might skip the above mentioned for on Grade 3, $150,000 Azeri at Oaklawn Park to be held on 17 March, 2012.
On 5th November 2010, she was third in the Grade 1, Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic at Churchill Downs, and then last year on 5th November in Grade 1, Breeders’ Cup Classic she finished fourth.
How will her 2012 campaign change the finishing pattern in the Breeders’ Cup is yet to unfold.
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