Suffolk Downs: Kimball Stakes draws hot first-timer Doublicious
EAST BOSTON, Mass. – Six statebred 3-year-old fillies will go postward in the $50,000 Louise Kimball Stakes at Suffolk Downs on Saturday, and the six-furlong sprint may be the coming-out party for Doublicious.
The unraced Anthony Ryan trainee has been tearing up the track in the mornings with three successive bullet works while stretching out from four to five furlongs. Doublicious also has the pedigree to suggest success in the Massachusetts-bred ranks: She is a daughter of Double Honor and the Holzmeister mare Miss Meister, making her a half-sister to Same Day Pleasure, who captured three statebred stakes in 2008-2009. Like Same Day Pleasure, Doublicious was bred by Angela and Frank Schifano and is owned by their Rum Runner Thoroughbred Racing Inc.
Doublicious drew the outside post and will be ridden by David Amiss.
“I kind of like that post,” said Ryan. “She’s been really good at the gate, and if there any issues with any other horses there, she won’t have to stand in there. It won’t bother her. I would have liked to have gotten a start for her before this, obviously, but she’s ready to go now. She’s got a good mind, she’s really matured out, and she’s got some lick to her, so I’m looking for a real big effort from her.”
Shelly’s Cider, the only filly in the field who has won, makes her second start off a two-month layoff and has every right to improve with leading rider Tammi Piermarini getting the return call. A Lloyd Lockhart homebred who is trained by Lloyd’s grandson Alan, Shelly’s Cider has one victory from five starts and was sixth last out in a first-level allowance test here at six furlongs.
Completing the field are Delycius Lady and Moon Scamper, both of whom are trained by George Brown but will run uncoupled due to separate ownership, first-time starter Spectacular Silk, and Dana.
French rider Tomas on improve
When a trainer and a rider as accomplished as Christophe Clement and Jean-Luc Samyn offer honest advice, it’s best to take it. That’s how fellow Frenchman Pierre Tomas ended up in the Suffolk jockey colony.
“Last year I came to New York to work for Monsieur Clement,” said Tomas, a 21-year-old native of Deauville. “I spent six months there and Jean-Luc was my agent. I learned so much from him because riding in America and riding on the dirt is very different from the way I knew. After I won five races during the winter at Aqueduct, they said I needed to learn more. Monsieur Clement sent me here and told me to stay.”
In 2012, Tomas went 0 for 61, but this year he has 17 wins, 37 seconds and 42 thirds from 350 mounts through Wednesday. Twelve of his victories have been at Suffolk, most for trainer Matthew Clarke’s Genesis Stable.
“I lost my bug a month ago, but Matthew stuck with me,” Tomas said. “He even helped me with my visa. I didn’t have any friends when I came to Boston and I have no family in America, so Matthew brought me home to live on the farm with his family. Now he’s like a father to me. I am very thankful to him.”
Injured riders making progress
While injured jockey Gary Wales has been coming around the track in the mornings and expects to begin getting on horses in a few more weeks, jockey Andria Terrill remains out of action indefinitely.
Terrill suffered three skull fractures in a spill here on July 8 when she was unseated after breaking from the gate. She was hospitalized for over a week. Director of racing Sam Elliott stays in close contact with her and he said she is making gradual progress and her attitude is positive.
The 27-year-old Wales, who fractured the L2 vertebra in his spine in a spill on Aug. 1, was off to a strong start before his injury. “I’m getting pretty bored, but the doctors said I’m healing fast and it shouldn’t be much longer,” he said. “I can’t wait to come back.”