Got Stormy on track for Woodbine Mile, BC Mile

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Got Stormy came out of her powerful victory in Saturday’s Grade 1 Fourstardave Handicap at Saratoga so well that trainer Mark Casse was only half-kidding when he said Sunday morning, “She can run again next week.”

Got Stormy won’t be in the entry box next week, but she will most likely make her next start in the Grade 1, $1 million Woodbine Mile on Sept. 14 as a stepping-stone to the Breeders’ Cup Mile on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita.

Got Stormy earned an automatic, fees-paid entry into the BC Mile by beating males – and the mare Uni – quite handily in the Fourstardave, a race in which she set a Saratoga Mellon Turf course record by running a mile in 1:32.00. Got Stormy earned a career-best 108 Beyer Speed Figure for the performance. That win came one week after she beat females in the $100,000 De La Rose Stakes, when she ran a mile in 1:33.15, just 0.02 off the then course record.

Saturday’s performance had Casse putting Got Stormy in the same rarefied air as Tepin, the two-time turf champion who beat males three times including the Breeders’ Cup Mile and in the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot.

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“I think after yesterday’s performance you got to start thinking about it, don’t you?” Casse said when asked if he could compare Got Stormy to Tepin.

Got Stormy, a 4-year-old daughter of Get Stormy, won the De La Rose Stakes by four lengths on Aug. 3. Casse was prompted by owner Gary Barber to wheel Got Stormy back in a week, having to supplement her to the Foustardave last Sunday for a fee of $7,500 in order to get a weight assignment for the race run under handicap conditions. As the week went on, Casse was glad Barber made him run.

“When I saw her in the paddock I thought she looked better than she did last week,” Casse said. “I’m not sure she didn’t look better this morning than she did yesterday. Tepin was the same way.”

Casse said the Woodbine Mile makes sense because Got Stormy has won over that course in the past and Casse himself has won the race with Tepin and World Approval, both of whom used that race as a springboard to Breeders’ Cup success.