Up With the Birds, Aldous Snow pointing to Canadian International

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – After two disappointing results to start the season, 2013 Canadian Horse of the Year Up With the Birds appeared to relish a return to his home track on Saturday as he captured the Grade 2, $236,400 Nijinsky Stakes by four lengths over Dynamic Sky and earned a career-best 98 Beyer Speed Figure.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been nervous for a race in my life, and I was kind of nervous today,” said trainer Malcolm Pierce. “There’s a lot of pressure on a Horse of the Year to try and come back and run to the way he ran as a 3-year-old. You get some salty old horses in this division. It was a very good group of horses that he beat today.”

Pierce and owner-breeder Sam-Son Farm now appear to have two horses on course for the Canadian International in October. Up With the Birds and Singspiel Stakes winner Aldous Snow could both be pointed to the race and will be separated in prep races for the International going forward.

“We’ve got the Sky Classic in a month from now, and we’ll just have to see which horse does that,” Pierce said. “We’ll separate these two horses somehow; we don’t have the plan just yet.”

Pierce said that finding a race away from Woodbine is not out of the question for either horse in an effort to avoid racing them against each other.