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September 23, 2007


JAZZY WINS BELMONT’S GRADE 2 GALLANT BLOOM HANDICAP,
SOUTH AFRICAN IMPORT SUCCESSFUL IN FIRST DIRT OUTING,
MARE MAY BE SUPPLEMENTED TO BREEDERS’ CUP F&M SPRINT


Jazzy confirms owners' confidence with Grade2 Gallant Bloom win in her first effort on dirt.
Jazzy was switched from turf to dirt for Saturday’s Grade 2 Gallant Bloom Handicap at Belmont Park as an experiment to see if she might be a viable candidate for the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.

Garrett Gomez, who had come from last when piloting the Team Valor International colorbearer to victory last month in the Capades Stakes on turf at Saratoga, happily found himself third of five just a couple of lengths off the pace in the run down the backstretch on a drying-out strip labeled “fast.”

Jazzy was allowed to creep closer while staying 3 wide rounding the turn and was lapped on two ahead of her curving into the lane just past the quarter pole.

“She idled on me and I wasn’t sure I had any horse left,” Gomez told trainer Mark Hennig. “But when I threw a cross at her, she came to life and showed me she had a lot left.”

Taking the lead just inside the furlong grounds, Jazzy opened up daylight advantage and kept to her task to hold off a mile late bid from favored Cuaba.

Bob Baffert’s triple Grade 1 winner Pussycat Doll showed early dash to push the pace and wound up third, beaten 1 ¼ lengths.

In the Capades on the grass, the filly encountered four separate bits of trouble, overcoming them all to get up close home to score narrowly but convincingly.

Team Valor had acquired a 50-percent interest from South African Desmond Scott and Floridian Rober Muir last year and brought the 5-year-old Argentine-bred to the United States, hoping to salvage a promising career that had been interrupted when she bled in South Africa.

“Geoff Woodruff told me the mare was a top-class sprinter and he has a lot of credibility with me, so we took the chance that we could get her to reproduce her best form,” said Barry Irwin. “I was reluctant to import a bleeder from that far away and have to jump through all of the hoops, because it doesn’t always work, but this time it did.”

Trainer Mark Hennig has run the mare on Lasix and in 3 outings, she is 6 inches short of being unbeaten in North America, with a win in the Gallant Bloom, a win in the Capades and a nose loss in Monmouth Park’s Incredible Revenge Stakes.

Following the mare’s electrifying victory on turf in the Capades Stakes at The Spa, Team Valor principal Barry Irwin suggested to the trainer that a switch to dirt in the Gallant Bloom might be a risk worth taking, as if she acted on the main track, it could open up additional opportunities, including the new Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.


Mark Hennig trains
Team Valor's Jazzy.
Hennig breezed the mare a couple of times on the dirt and gave the green light. In her breeze just before the Belmont stakes, Jazzy had the third-fastest half-mile on a large tab, when she tried to run off with her exercise rider.

Irwin said “I will speak to my racing partners and come up a consensus about whether we want to pony up the Breeders’ Cup supplement. If this was a colt, I would not even consider it.

“But with a filly, if she hits the board it is worth it just to see the name of the race on her sale’s catalogue page, even though the race is not yet a Grade 1. It would have been nice if the Argentine breeders who lease the sire Mutakddim would have paid the cost of one stud fee to make him eligible to the Breeders’ Cup, because it is going to be expensive to make the mare eligible for the race.”

Jazzy is the latest major winner to be purchased by Barry Irwin in South Africa and win importantly, following such others as Crimson Palace (Grade 1 Beverly D Stakes), Ipi Tombe (Grade 1 Dubai Duty Free Stakes), Irridescence (Grade 1 Audemars Piguet Queen Elizabeth II Cup), Little Miss Magic (Grade 1 Empress Club Stakes), Delta Form (Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap), Sally Bowles (Grade 2 KZN Fillies Guineas), Tara’s Touch (Grade 3 Royal North Handicap) and Stately (Grade 3 Strelitzia Stakes).

From Daily Racing Form comes the following:
    Jazzy takes to dirt with solid victory in Gallant Bloom
    by Dave Grening


    Jazzy continues her winning ways stateside with another impressive stakes victory.
    Consider the dirt experiment with Jazzy a success.

    After a successful career on turf, Jazzy showed she is equally adept on dirt, registering a workmanlike three-quarter-length score over Cuaba in Saturday's Grade 2, $150,000 Gallant Bloom Handicap at Belmont Park. It was a half-length back to Pussycat Doll in third.

    Great Intentions and Princess Janie completed the order of finish.

    On turf, Jazzy had shown a sensational turn of foot, getting up in the final jump to win the Capades Stakes at Saratoga. In the Gallant Bloom, Jazzy rated just off the pace established by Great Intentions and pressed by Pussycat Doll.

    Jazzy, under Garrett Gomez, moved when Pussycat Doll did around the turn, but Jazzy moved past that one inside the eighth pole and held Cuaba at bay to the wire. Jazzy, a 5-year-old Argentine-bred daughter of Mutakkdim, covered the 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:16.71 and returned $7.80 as the third choice.

    "That worked out all right," winning trainer Mark Hennig said. "It was good to see her come away from the gate showing that much life. At least I knew she was handling it. My biggest concern was if that last sixteenth or eighth of a mile she'd be spinning her wheels because of the change of surface."

    Hennig said that Jazzy, owned by Team Valor, Des Scott, and Robert Muir, could be a candidate for the new $1 million Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Monmouth Park on Oct. 26.
Additional press:

http://www.ntra.com/content.aspx?type=news&id=27959 (video included)

http://www.brisnet.com/cgi-bin/editorial/article.cgi?id=9260 (pdf chart included)