Joyful Victory enters 2012 with far less fanfare
The 4-year-old J. Larry Jones trained filly, Joyful Victory, has spent the past two years of her racing career under the shadow of Havre de Grace, who is currently residing in the same barn, and the Tapit filly can continue to play the role of understudy rather than a star.
Though, Joyful Victory had her moments in her sophomore season when she lived up to early hype at Oaklawn Park race course with a pair of blowout stakes wins there.
She went on to win the Grade 3 Honeybee Stakes at about 1 1/16 miles on dirt coupled with Mike Smith to down Holy Heavens in second and Dixie City in third, while covering the distance in 1 minute and 44.83 seconds.
It was time for another graded stakes win, as Joyful Victory with the same combination got hold of the Grade 2 Fantasy Stakes on 10 April, 2011, but against a different cast. Arienza looked in contention, but didn’t have enough legs to go all out as she wilted to finish second, followed up by the Honeybee runner up, Holy Heavens.
Two wins on the trot made, Joyful Victory, an early favourite for the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks, but sadly for the Canadian bred filly, the 10 April Fantasy would prove to be the water mark of the filly’s sophomore season.
Owned by Rick Porter, Joyful Victory, is out of mare Wild Luck Black by Wild Again, is pointed toward an allowance race to kick start her 2012 season. She will be one of eight horses entered in a third-level allowance with $62,500 claimers.
The race will be run over a distance of 1 mile on turf at Fair Grounds race course on 11 January, 2012.
“We’re actually looking forward to the turf to see if we might have another dimension for her,” Jones said. “Fair Grounds had need of a horse for this race, and we saw no reason not to run. She’s had a couple nice five-eighths [works]. I’m not saying she’s 110 percent ready to go, but she galloped out pretty good the other day. Hopefully, her class is going to carry her a little way in there.”
She will be going against good runners, and out of all of them, Bet on the Blue, looks like her main rival after being placed in a Grade 3 event on grass early in 2011.
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