Woodbine: Eagle Poise ships back for another Valedictory

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine horse-for-course Eagle Poise will try to win the Grade 3, $150,000 Valedictory Stakes for the second time Sunday.

The Maryland-based runner will meet another shipper from the Fair Hill Training Center in the 1 3/4-mile marathon, archrival Tricky Hat, in the fourth of 13 races on closing day of the meet.

Eagle Poise has raced three times since returning from an extended layoff Aug. 25, when he wound up third behind Imagining in the Idle Rich Stakes at Saratoga. He subsequently ran second to Tricky Hat in the Laurel Turf Cup and then left Tricky Hat in his wake when second in the Oct. 17 Sycamore Stakes at Keeneland.

“He had a chip removed, or something,” trainer Graham Motion recalled. “We gave him plenty of time off, probably more than he needed just to be really conservative. I thought we picked a competitive spot for him to come back in, but I felt that he was training well. Every time I’ve run him, I’ve been very pleased with how he’s run. I’m not sure he hasn’t come back a little better than he was before. He’s been training in the snow, so that should have him well-prepared.”

Eagle Poise captured the 2011 Valedictory and was second in the 2009 edition, both under Patrick Husbands, who has won four races on the 7-year-old.

“He seems to like those longer races [at Woodbine], and Patrick has a good rapport with him,” Motion said.

Tricky Hat, a Chilean import trained by Shug McGaughey, notched his first stakes win in the $100,000 Laurel Turf Cup. The Sycamore, which was taken off the grass, was his first start on a synthetic surface, and he parlayed a wide-stalking trip into a solid third on the Polytrack. Rosie Napravnik was named on Tricky Hat, who is adding blinkers.

There are two other American shippers in the lineup, Address Unknown and Gallant Eagle.

Peyton is a viable longshot in the Valedictory, in which he wound up a distant second last year. Peyton is coming off a lackluster performance in the prep for the Valedictory, a 12-furlong allowance that he won in 2012.

“His last race, he didn’t show up at all,” trainer Mike Doyle said. “He was very quiet for a week or so afterwards, which is very unlike him. But he bounced back and has been training great.”

Doyle sent out Quaesitor to win the slow-paced Valedictory prep by a head over the front-running Turkish. Quaesitor has since been reunited with his original trainer, Ian Howard.