LONGINES BREEDERS’

CUP DISTAFF (GRADE 1)

PLAN your work. Work your plan.

In thoroughbred racing, the trainer plans the work and the horse must work the plan. The first part is easy, the second part, well, that’s the tricky part.

No trainer and no horse worked a plan better in 2017 than Dallas Stewart and Forever Unbridled.

After Forever Unbridled finished third behind champions Beholder and Songbird in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff, Stewart set out a plan to get the five-year-old mare back to the show. First, surgery to remove an ankle chip and then a June return.

Forever Unbridled returned with a flourish, winning the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis at Churchill Downs. On Travers Day at Saratoga, she nabbed Songbird to win the Grade 1 Personal Ensign. With Breeders’ Cup as the target, Stewart passed on another race in between.

“That was the plan,” Stewart said on the way back to his barn on Friday evening. “Once we got her back and got it planned out, it was pretty simple. She could keep herself fit, or we thought we could keep her fit and we could accomplish what we wanted to accomplish. The point was to get her here fresh and fit, and it worked.”

Owned and bred by Charles Fipke, Forever Unbridled finalised a three-for-three season and clinched the Eclipse Award as champion older female of 2017 with a half-length score over Abel Tasman in the Distaff, which highlighted the opening day of the Breeders’ Cup World Championships.

JUSTICE

She also got some justice, winning a race she finished third in last year. A year ago at Santa Anita, she couldn’t reel in champions Beholder and Songbird and settled for a game – if futile – effort.

There was no settling in 2017. Breaking from post six in the eight-horse field, Forever Unbridled wasted no time letting everyone else do the early running. She was seventh around the first turn, before John Velazquez advanced positions like he was driving a racecar in an arcade, gunning Forever Unbridled to lead turning for home and holding off Abel Tasman. Velazquez, a controversial late choice by Fipke (he was forced to pay jockey Joel Rosario a winner’s share as well), remained undefeated aboard Forever Unbridled.

“Sometimes you can draw it the way you want it to and it doesn’t show up,” Velazquez said of having pre-race plans. “It just happens she was there for me. She did everything I asked her to do and she responded for everything I wanted to do. It’s easy when you have a job like that and the horse responds for you.”

Just part of the plan.