Gulfstream Park: Inimitable Romanee doesn't need lead to run well in The Very One
[bc_video_id:316399:]HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A gray mare named Inimitable Romanee got away on a loping lead in her last start, leading to a 28-1 upset. It’s highly questionable whether a similar scenario will unfold Saturday over 1 3/8 miles in the Grade 3 The Very One at Gulfstream Park, given the speed among her opposition, although trainer Graham Motion wouldn’t mind seeing those other turf mares making early concessions.
“The chances of that happening at Gulfstream are pretty remote,” Motion said this week from his snow-buried Fair Hill base in northern Maryland. “Everybody seems to want to go a little quicker down there. But the thing is, I don’t think she needs the lead. It might well be more of her liking the distance. It’s a shame it took me so long to figure that out with her.”
[Clocker Reports: Get Mike Welsch’s clocker reports from Gulfstream Park and Palm Meadows]
Inimitable Romanee, a New York-bred by Maria’s Mon, has not raced in more than three months, having ended her 5-year-old campaign with that $58.50 stunner in the Grade 3 Long Island Handicap on Nov. 9 at Aqueduct. She has had five workouts at the Palm Meadows training center in recent weeks.
“We gave her a little break with this race in mind, really,” Motion said. “We kept her here until Christmas time and then sent her down there. The New York-breds she faced along the way were a really good group, like Hessonite and Dayatthespa and a couple others.”
Inimitable Romanee is just one of a handful of viable considerations in a well-matched field of eight mares in the 29th The Very One, as most of the others figure to draw a comparable amount of play.
That group includes Aigue Marine, the beaten favorite in the Long Island; Left a Message, in from Tampa Bay Downs for Tom Proctor; Preferential, who came into top form as her 4-year-old season ended in Kentucky last fall; and Anjaz, a Godolphin mare specializing in just this type of turf marathon.
Preferential, trained by Bill Mott, had been intended to run in the La Prevoyante in late December before Calder officials canceled the race.
“She’d been training right along for that race and actually has been sitting on ready for quite some time now,” Mott said.
Rounding out a solid lineup are Seanchai, Dame Marie, and Viva Rafaela.
The Very One, a foal of 1975, won 22 races and more than $1 million for Helen Polinger. The race named in her honor is carded as the eighth of 11 and is the female counterpart to the Mac Diarmida, another turf marathon that follows two races later Saturday.