Starship Jubilee Attard's latest success story

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Kevin Attard is making a habit of turning claimers into graded stakes winners, with his latest being 4-year-old filly Starship Jubilee.

Claimed for $16,000 at Gulfstream Park this past winter, Starship Jubilee has won the Grade 2 Nassau Stakes and Grade 2 Dance Smartly Stakes at Woodbine this season, and will aim for her third graded stakes win in Saturday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Canadian Stakes.

Attard was in Florida helping his father, Tino, with his winter operation when Starship Jubilee popped up on his radar winning a $16,000 claiming event over 7 1/2 furlongs Jan. 4.

“I just happened to be in Florida a bit this winter and we were looking for horses to claim,” he said. “We went in for a bunch of horses, getting outshook or not dropping slips for whatever reason we didn’t like. She came across and looked like a horse that appreciated stretch-out when they did. In that race, she had a good turn of foot. Even in her five-furlong races, she was always coming. I thought that maybe this filly has been dying to stretch out a bit, and now she’s found her niche.”

In her next start on Feb. 12, Starship Jubilee was back in for $16,000 when Attard won a shake for her. She would go on to reel off three straight victories for her new connections to close out the Gulfstream meet, and shipped to Canada to join Kevin Attard’s string at Woodbine. Her first start at Woodbine came in the Nassau on May 27, a race she won by 2 1/4 lengths, and she followed with the win in the Dance Smartly, finishing in a dead heat with Rainha Da Bateria.

“She won three in a row for us in Florida, and came up here and we just gave it a shot,” Attard said. “We were hoping for the best, obviously, but we understood she was facing graded company for the first time in her life and she had never run against those type of horses. She surpassed expectations, that’s for sure.”

After Starship Jubilee’s wins in the Nassau and Dance Smartly, she ran fifth against males in the Grade 2 Sky Classic Stakes over 1 3/8 miles on turf Aug. 20. Attard said he had been looking for a spot out of town, but felt he needed to run Starship Jubilee in the Sky Classic to get a race into her ahead of the Canadian.

“A couple of things fell through the cracks on us, and the Sky Classic was coming up with a small field.” he said. “It was a little questionable about the distance, but it was a matter of putting her on a van and shipping somewhere or walking over to the front side.”

Over the past five years, Attard has won graded stakes with three former claimers: Calgary Cat, Melmich, and now Starship Jubilee. Attard said luck has played a part, but added that confidence is key when stepping horses up in class.

“With all three of those particular horses, if you look at their form before they tested stakes company, they had good form,” he said. “They were on winning streaks and their confidence was high before we threw them to the wolves, I guess you could say. They were winning races and they were happy horses. She was in the same boat, obviously.”