2019 Eclipse Awards: Come Dancing
Come Dancing had been fairly productive in prior years, but there was no reason to expect her to become an Eclipse Awards finalist prior to her 5-year-old season of 2019.
And yet Come Dancing reached unforeseen heights, recording an eye-popping Beyer Speed Figure while also becoming a Grade 1 winner and millionaire for her owner-breeder, the Blue Devil Racing Stable of Marc Holliday and James O’Reilly.
A winner of half her eight well-spaced starts at 2, 3, and 4, the sudden emergence of Come Dancing came in her first start at 5. She won the Grade 3 Distaff on April 5 at Aqueduct by 7 3/4 lengths, finishing seven furlongs in 1:22.31 to earn a 114 Beyer, the highest of any filly or mare all year.
“What she did was so special,” trainer Carlos Martin told Daily Racing Form afterward, adding he would proceed carefully as the year unfolded. “Such an important part of this business is managing these kinds of good horses.”
:: Full list of 2019 Eclipse Awards finalists, including profile stories
Based at Belmont Park, Come Dancing would race five more times. Thirty days after the Distaff, she easily won the Grade 2 Ruffian at Belmont, earning a 103 Beyer, after which she was second as an odds-on favorite to Midnight Bisou in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps, a 1 1/16-mile race on the June 8 Belmont Stakes undercard.
Martin decided afterward to keep Come Dancing at distances under a mile while switching from jockey Manny Franco, who rode the mare in her first three races of the year, to Javier Castellano for the duration. Duly regrouped, the dark bay mare hit the bull’s-eye when dominating the Grade 1 Ballerina on the Aug. 24 Travers undercard at Saratoga. It was a day Holliday and O’Reilly will always cherish, having attended racing at Saratoga for some 35 years. “I’m not sure that anything in racing can eclipse that moment for us,” Holliday told the Form.
Martin then used the Grade 2 Gallant Bloom on Sept. 22 as a stepping-stone to the Nov. 2 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint. Come Dancing did her job again, cruising home by 3 1/4 lengths as a 1-4 favorite.
The next start was for all the divisional marbles, with Come Dancing sent away a close 2-1 second choice behind the 3-2 Covfefe in the Grade 1 BC Filly and Mare Sprint at Santa Anita. For reasons Martin and Castellano couldn’t quite pinpoint, Come Dancing was never a serious factor, finishing sixth of nine, 12 1/2 lengths behind the victorious Covfefe.
“She never got into the bridle,” said Castellano. “She is such a consistent filly, this just wasn’t her.”
Come Dancing, by Malibu Moon out of Tizahit, by Tiznow, was bred in Kentucky. She finished the year with four wins from six starts for earnings of $808,250. Overall, she has won 8 for 14 and earned $1,064,950.
After the Breeders’ Cup, Come Dancing was originally intended for retirement, but Martin announced in late December that the mare most likely will return to race at 6, with another shot at the Filly and Mare Sprint at Keeneland being the goal.