Starship Jubilee might make return appearance in Claiming Crown

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Starship Jubilee, last year’s Canadian champion female grass runner, was a $425,000 buy-back from the Keeneland November sale, but trainer Kevin Attard said she was sold privately after going through the ring to Blue Heaven Farm in Kentucky.

“We’ve got her training in Kentucky right now, possibly heading to the Claiming Crown,” Attard said. “If all goes well, she’ll be having a 2019 campaign as well.”

Starship Jubilee, who was a bargain $16,000 claim at Gulfstream early in 2017, wound up third in a Claiming Crown race for fillies and mares on the grass there last Dec. 2. She went on to have another productive season in 2018, highlighted by a decisive victory in the Grade 2 Canadian here and a front-running fourth in the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor on Oct. 13. This year’s Claiming Crown is Dec. 1 at Gulfstream.

Attard said Starship Jubilee “ran a super race” in the 1 1/4-mile E.P. Taylor.

“A mile and a quarter is a little bit beyond her best,” he said.

Attard is aiming the 7-year-old geldings Pumpkin Rumble and Melmich to the final stakes of the Woodbine meet, the 1 3/4-mile Valedictory on Dec. 9.

Pumpkin Rumble won the 1 5/8-mile allowance prep for the Grade 3 Valedictory in a romp on Nov. 16. That was his second straight triumph.

“He tailed off in the summertime, and we freshened him up and backed off on him a little bit,” Attard said. “He came back to his old self in his last two races.”

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The durable millionaire Melmich earned his first win of the meet in a Nov. 10 optional claimer. He captured the 2015 Valedictory by 10 lengths and finished second in the marathon in each of the past two years.

“I think he needed a race to gain his confidence back,” Attard said. “It worked out well. It was a very easy win for him.”

Meet-leading jockey Eurico Da Silva has been riding both Attard runners, and it will be interesting to see which one he chooses in the $125,000 Valedictory.

◗ Trainer Mike Doyle reported that Tiz Breathtaking fractured a tibia when she ran third as the favorite in the $225,000 Princess Elizabeth Stakes on Nov. 4. She is out for the year.

Tiz Breathtaking had won two stakes in a row going into the Princess Elizabeth, most notably the Grade 3 Mazarine. The daughter of Tiznow is a contender for Canadian champion 2-year-old filly honors.

◗ Big Shanty and Hollow Point are among the contenders in Friday’s nominal feature, a nonwinners-of-three hybrid sprint for Ontario-sired allowance types and $40,000 claimers. Post time for the first of nine races is 1 p.m. Eastern.