Givemeaminit targets Risen Star after overdue maiden win
It was bound to happen sometime. The 3-year-old colt Givemeaminit, in his seventh try, finally won a horse race.
Six losses to start his career didn’t signify a lack of talent – not at all. But after finishing second to subsequent Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes winner Sporting Chance while making his career debut in a Saratoga maiden race last summer, Givemeaminit went on to contest three Grade 1 races and a Grade 2. He was third, beaten a neck, in the Hopeful and fourth of 12 in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
But after Givemeaminit lost by a neck Dec. 31 in the males’ division of the Louisiana Futurity, trainer Dallas Stewart and owner Murray Valene put him in a Louisiana-bred maiden sprint on Jan. 28. Without appearing to work for it, Givemeaminit won by eight lengths.
“It doesn’t always work out that way, but he ran a big race,” Stewart said. “The horse ran well, and it all went according to plan.”
Givemeaminit, who got an 80 Beyer Speed Figure, was making his first start wearing blinkers. His second will come Feb. 17 in the Risen Star Stakes since the maiden race last weekend was meant as a stepping-stone toward that stakes race as much as a confidence builder.