Gulfstream Park: Tagg hoping for good things from Caroline Thomas

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Barclay Tagg trained Bit of Whimsy to become a Grade 1 winner in 2007, and now he’s hoping to be able to achieve similar results with her daughter Caroline Thomas, who won for the second time in three starts when she defeated first-level allowance competition on the turf here Sunday.

Bit of Whimsy won the Queen Elizabeth II Cup at Keeneland as a 3-year-old in 2007. She was also a Grade 2 and Grade 3 winner during a career that ended the following summer following a troubled ninth-place finish in the Grade 1 Diana.

Caroline Thomas, who is by Giant’s Causeway, finished second when launching her career late this summer at Belmont Park but has come back to win her next two starts. On Sunday, she saved ground to the stretch, eased out, and ran down the pace-setting Miss Lucky Sevens to register a one-length victory under Javier Castellano, who had also ridden Bit of Whimsy to victory in the QEII.

“I was glad he was on her,” said Tagg immediately after the race. “Any other jock would have still been back there looking for a way through. I was thinking, ‘Is he going to stay in, is he going to go out,’ and all of a sudden, boom, there he goes! It’s uncanny.”

Tagg said that with her pedigree, expectations naturally are high for Caroline Thomas.

“She sure acts like a good one,” said Tagg. “She does everything right, everything you ask her to do. She’s pretty cool and collected about everything she does. She’s got a lot of class.”

Tagg said had Sunday’s race not gone or had she been excluded, he’d have run her the previous afternoon in the Dania Beach.

“I really wanted to do this first if I could,” said Tagg. “With a 2-year-old in July or August you might as well go in a stakes because they’re all just maiden winners. But once you’ve come this far, it’s always better to let them go through their next condition first.”