Eye of the Leopard pitched the mighty Sam-Son Farm into the heat of the Queen's Plate picture yesterday, when the lightly raced colt staged an upset to win the $150,000 Plate Trial at Woodbine racetrack.
Eye of the Leopard went off at odds of 5 to 1 while El Brujo, the impressive winner of two Plate stepping stones in the past six weeks, the Achievement and Queenston Stakes, went off as a 9-to-5 favourite.
The speedy El Brujo broke from Post 1 but lagged off the pace in seventh place. He moved into contention at the six-furlong mark, but ended up ninth of 10 horses. "I don't want to talk about him," jockey Patrick Husbands said curtly after the race.
But Eye of the Leopard seems to be coming into his own, with only three weeks to go before the $1-million Queen's Plate, the 150th edition of the race, on June 21.
Sam-Son has won four previous Queen's Plate, but it's been an eight-year drought since it won its last one, with the filly Dancethruthedawn in 2001.
The farm also won the Plate in 1988 with Regal Intention, in 1991 with Dance Smartly and with Dancethruthedawn's brother, Scatter the Gold, in 2000.
Sam-Son trainer Mark Frostad said he's had to rush the first son of Woodbine Oaks winner Eye of the Sphinx to get ready for the Plate, because he was so backward last year as a 2-year-old.
"He's such a big horse," Frostad said. "He's got to be 17 hands or close to it. He got a little jarred on [training]on the Polytrack here, so we just backed off on him and gave him some time."
Frostad took Eye of the Leopard to New Orleans for the winter, where he was fit and ready to go, but he developed an upper-respiratory infection that took him out of training for a month. His first race didn't come until April 15, when he finished eighth at Keeneland in Kentucky, defeating only two horses - hardly a promising beginning. But it was only seven furlongs and too short for the big colt. "I just wanted to get a race into him," Frostad said. "He got something out of it."
The imposing Eye of the Leopard won his first race at Woodbine only three weeks ago, and he was impressive at 11/16 miles. "I figured we had a shot," Frostad said.
It didn't help that the big colt drew the outside Post 10 yesterday in the 11/8-mile Plate Trial, and he was forced to run three-wide into the first turn and really didn't get a look at the rail the entire trip.
Second-choice Southdale, trained by Ian Black, led the field into the stretch, but Eye of the Leopard gradually wore him down to win by a neck in 1 minute 51.80 seconds.
"He seems to be making it under the wire," Frostad said. "We've had to play catch-up and he's a great big horse so it takes a lot to get him fit."
Eye of the Leopard's win will make him a favourite for the Plate, but Southdale was running his first race around two turns and should improve for the Queen's Plate. Rapid Release, trained by Roger Attfield and ridden by Jono Jones, was a closing third. Attfield and Jones won the Queen's Plate last year with Not Bourbon.
"We've got the right man training him," Jones said. "Let's hope we can get another one together."
Southdale is trained by Ian Black and ridden by Emma-Jayne Wilson, the same team that won the Queen's Plate with Mike Fox two years ago.
"He's still learning," Wilson said of Southdale. "He's still got a few more things to figure out. … I think it set him up good for the Plate."
Active Duty finished fourth for rider Corey Fraser, who said the pace crawled, so he stayed as close to the pace as possible. He'll like the 11/4-mile distance of the Plate, Fraser said.