Story by: Beverley Smith for Woodbine Communications<\/p>\n
TORONTO, June 26, 2019\u2013It\u2019s only fitting: two years after her dominant victory in the Queen\u2019s Plate, Holy Helena has come home to race on Plate day at Woodbine, albeit in the Dance Smartly Stakes.<\/p>\n
The five-year-old daughter of Ghostzapper, owned by Frank Stronach\u2019s Adena Stables, was chosen Canada\u2019s top three-year-old filly in 2017 after she swept both the Woodbine Oaks and the Plate, before finishing second in the G3 Ontario Derby against colts that year.<\/p>\n
Eventually, she won the G3 The Very One Stakes at Gulfstream Park (twice) and the G2 Sheepshead Bay Stakes at Belmont Park in May.<\/p>\n
Her first six starts had been on dirt and synthetic tracks, but trainer Jimmy Jerkins switched her to the turf to open her four-year-old season. And she promptly won three consecutive races.<\/p>\n
The Dance Smartly is on turf, part of the Ladies of the Lawn Series at Woodbine: a series of graded turf races for fillies and mares that includes the $175,000 G2 Nassau (run on May 26), the $250,000 G2 Canadian Stakes on September 14 and culminating in the $600,000 G1 E.P. Taylor Stakes on October 12. There are $75,000 in bonuses at stake for the top performers based on a point system in the series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the distance [1 \u00bc miles of the Dance Smartly] will be to her liking,\u201d said Adena racing manager Mike Doyle. \u201cJimmy thinks the same way. And if things work out well, it\u2019s a way to get a start in her here, and we\u2019ll talk about it afterwards. She may stay here.\u201d<\/p>\n
They have their eye on the E.P. Taylor Stakes, hoping to get a G1 race to her credit, something that would improve her value. \u201cThe E.P. Taylor is a long-term goal,\u201d Doyle said. \u201cWe want to add to her value the best way we can and not over race her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holy Helena has started only 17 times in her career, with seven wins and $1,211,578 in earnings. She runs best off a rest, although she was pressed to race with only three weeks between the Oaks and Plate and handled it well, Doyle said. She last raced three weeks ago in the New York Stakes at Belmont, finishing fourth, but didn\u2019t have a good trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey walked and she was caught down on the inside and had trouble getting out,\u201d Doyle said. \u201cThen she had to wait for horses to run by to get out. She came running and got beat less than three lengths.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was also a 1 \u00bc-mile race. Jerkens reasoned that Holy Helena really only got to run for a little bit.<\/p>\n
Javier Castellano will ride Holy Helena in the Dance Smartly. Last year, she also ran in the Dance Smartly, finishing third, but Jerkens hadn\u2019t really earmarked the race. She came north for a rest, but when Doyle saw her on the farm, and looking so healthy, and the Dance Smartly coming up rather light, he thought it a good spot for her. She finished third, off the farm.<\/p>\n
Holy Helena arrived on Thursday at Woodbine, looking the picture of health, with lots of weight. The laid-back mare recognized her Toronto groom, Denzell Fonseca, pricking her ears at the sight of him after shipping well from New York.<\/p>\n
Doyle believes this will be Holy Helena\u2019s final year of racing.<\/p>\n
Holy Helena will be up against Starship Jubilee, who finished second to Secret Message in the first leg of the Ladies of the Lawn Series, and a three-year-old from Roger Attfield\u2019s barn.<\/p>\n
Starship Jubilee, a $16,000 claim for trainer Kevin Attard who turned into Canada\u2019s 2017 champion turf female \u2013 after winning the 2017 Dance Smartly and the Nassau \u2013 was sold at a U.S. sale last year. But after Kentucky-based Blue Heaven Farm principals Bonnie Baskin and her son Adam Cornduff bought her privately after the hammer fell, they asked Kevin Attard if he wanted to continue training her. He didn\u2019t hesitate.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s been a great filly,\u201d Attard said. \u201cAnd they were prepared to race her another year if she was healthy and willing and she has been. She has been a wonderful horse for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cA mile and a quarter is as far as she wants to go,\u201d Attard said. \u201cWe have been working on getting her to relax early in her races and we\u2019re hoping she does that on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attfield\u2019s stakes-winning Ickymasho has been retired, or he would have entered her in the Dance Smartly. But instead he is sending her stablemate, the four-year-old filly Cartabianca and three-year-old filly Art of Almost.<\/p>\n
\u201cArt of Almost gets in with 111 pounds,\u201d Attfield said. \u201cI think she would like that distance and I think that\u2019s a great weight advantage in that race. So I\u2019m going to give a three-year-old filly a go at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The $175,000 Dance Smartly is the eighth of 13 races on a stakes-filled Queen\u2019s Plate day that kicks off at 12 noon Saturday at Woodbine Racetrack. Here is a look at the complete field in post position order:<\/p>\n
POST \u2013 HORSE \u2013 JOCKEY \u2013 TRAINER \u2013 OWNER<\/em><\/p>\n 1 \u2013 Holy Helena \u2013 Javier Castellano \u2013 Jimmy Jerkens<\/p>\n 2 \u2013 Art of Almost \u2013 Kazushi Kimura \u2013 Roger Attfield<\/p>\n 3 \u2013 Empressof the Nile \u2013 Drayden Van Dyke \u2013 Graham Motion<\/p>\n 4 \u2013 Starship Jubilee \u2013 Luis Contreras \u2013 Kevin Attard<\/p>\n 5 \u2013 Get Explicit \u2013 Patrick Husbands \u2013 Barbara Minshall<\/p>\n 6 \u2013 Cartabianca \u2013 Alan Garcia \u2013 Roger Attfield<\/p>\n 7 \u2013 Lift Up \u2013 Alex Cintron \u2013 Michael Dickinson<\/p>\n 8 \u2013 Rock my Love \u2013 Flavien Prat \u2013 Jonathan Thomas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Story by: Beverley Smith for Woodbine Communications TORONTO, June 26, 2019\u2013It\u2019s only fitting: two years after her dominant victory in the Queen\u2019s Plate, Holy Helena has come home to race on Plate day at Woodbine, albeit in the Dance Smartly Stakes. The five-year-old daughter of Ghostzapper, owned by Frank Stronach\u2019s Adena Stables, was chosen Canada\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2777,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[46,82,83,88,124,168,228],"class_list":["post-2776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-woodbine-news","tag-dance-smartly-stakes","tag-holy-helena","tag-horse-racing","tag-james-jerkens","tag-michael-doyle","tag-queens-plate-festival","tag-woodbine"],"yoast_head":"\n