La Verdad gets a vacation
La Verdad raced 13 times between November 2013 and this Thanksgiving, using her blazing speed to win five stakes. Trainer Linda Rice is giving La Verdad some time off but intends to race her in 2015.
La Verdad, 4, tired while facing males in the slop in the Fall Highweight Handicap on Thanksgiving. She has since been sent to Patty Hogan’s Fair Winds Farm in New Jersey for a breather and is scheduled to rejoin Rice’s stable in February.
“She’s been an iron horse and has run about once a month for a year straight,” Rice said. “She came out of the Fall Highweight okay, but the plan was for that to be her last race before a well-deserved vacation.”
La Verdad scored her biggest win in the Grade 2 Distaff at Aqueduct in April. She also won four New York-bred stakes: the Iroquois, Dancing Renee, Critical Eye, and Broadway.
La Verdad is exceptionally fast and has had the lead after a quarter-mile in 13 of her 16 starts. Two of the three times she was headed early came in the slop, and the other was in her career debut in March 2013.
In one of her best efforts, La Verdad missed by a head to Artemis Agrotera in the Grade 2 Gallant Bloom at Belmont Park in September. La Verdad set fractions of 21.68 seconds, 43.78, and 1:08.70 in that 6 1/2-furlong race before being caught in the final jump.
“Last winter, we tried to get her to come from off the pace, but she’s so fast it was hard to get someone in front of her, so we gave up,” Rice said.
La Verdad, a daughter of Yes It’s True, has won 10 of 16 starts and $780,700.