Shedaresthedevil to stay in training for 5-year-old season

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky Oaks winner Shedaresthedevil will remain in training for 2022 with trainer Brad Cox for a new set of partners after she lit up the bid board at $5 million at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall selected mixed sale on Tuesday.

Shedaresthedevil, a 4-year-old Daredevil filly, has been campaigned to seven graded stakes victories over the past two seasons by the partnership of Staton Flurry’s Flurry Racing Stables, Qatar Racing, and Big Aut Farms. The filly was on offer as a racing or broodmare prospect, with Hunter Valley Farm handling her consignment, as agent. Mandy Pope, who breeds and races as Whisper Hill Farm, is known for her high-profile purchases of accomplished fillies and mares, and Shedaresthedevil was high on her list.

“She’s such a wonderful racehorse and she’s gorgeous,” Pope said. “She reminds me a lot, in her physique and the way she carries herself, of Havre de Grace, so maybe we’ll have another Horse of the Year.”

Gainesway’s Alex Solis II, who is an associate of Pope, introduced the parties to one another, helping arrange a deal for Flurry and Qatar Racing to keep a piece of their stable star. Fergus Galvin of Hunter Valley said the process happened “very late” prior to sale.

“This is kind of the best of both worlds for them,” Galvin said. “They get a fair market price for her and get to continue the journey with her.”

Shedaresthedevil has earned more than $2.3 million while winning seven graded stakes, highlighted by the 2020 Kentucky Oaks over eventual Eclipse Award champions Swiss Skydiver and Gamine in stakes-record time of 1:48.28 for 1 1/8 miles. She added additional Grade 1 wins this season in the La Troienne and the Clement Hirsch. She came to Fasig-Tipton off a sixth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff on Saturday at Del Mar after racing near a radioactive early pace.

“I thought her race was very, very good on Saturday,” said Cox, who was on hand for the sale. “I thought at the half-mile pole, she looked like a winner, but I also knew they went in [44.97 seconds], and then at the five-sixteenths pole, we were starting to see the effects of the hot pace. But overall, she wasn’t beaten that far, she stayed on well. She bounced out of it in good order, and I think there’s a ton of tread left on the tires.”