{"id":2340,"date":"2006-05-04T04:34:57","date_gmt":"2006-05-04T04:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blacktypebugler.com\/?p=2340"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"oldbtb_4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/?p=2340","title":{"rendered":"Oaks Post #7: Frostfang Primed For Big Oaks Run"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"GivenIt’s\u00a0not hard to find Given.\u00a0 Just stop by barn five at Bluegrass Downs any day around dawn.\u00a0 He’ll greet you with a big smile, a firm handshake, and a hot cup of coffee.\u00a0 When I arrived Monday morning to talk about Frostfang, a daughter of\u00a0Forestry who represents Given’s Confessor Stable, for my BTB story, he was busy supervising blacksmith Tommy Jensen who was shoeing his other Oaks hopeful, Hancock Pond.<\/DIV>
\u00a0<\/DIV>
“Hey Nextbonus!\u00a0 Good to see you!\u00a0 Thanks for stopping by.\u00a0 My fillies will be going out for their final work as soon as Hancock Pond gets her new shoes on.\u00a0 Care to join me by the rail?”<\/DIV>
\u00a0<\/DIV>
Watching horses work in the\u00a0morning\u00a0is one of life’s\u00a0simple pleasures.\u00a0 The beauty, the grace, the power.\u00a0 I was ready!<\/DIV>
\u00a0<\/DIV>
Oaks jockeys Nick Lawton (Frostfang)\u00a0and Paul Cadigan (Hancock Pond) were chatting a few stalls down while waiting to work their fillies.\u00a0 Neither was very familiar with\u00a0his mount although Lawton, ironically, had won with Hancock Pond in her debut.<\/DIV>
\u00a0<\/DIV>
I gave Lawton a leg up on Frostfang while Given hoisted Cadigan aboard his mount.\u00a0 The four of us then headed trackside.\u00a0 As we walked, Given gave\u00a0his riders their instructions.\u00a0 “Nick, I want Frosty (Frostfang) in front.\u00a0 That\u00a0shouldn’t be a problem because she’s as headstrong in the morning as she is in the afternoon.\u00a0 I’m looking for five furlongs worth of even twelves.\u00a0 Paul, you’ll probably have to chase Pond in order to keep up.\u00a0 She’s a little on the lazy side.\u00a0 Once you turn for home, get after her some more.\u00a0 I\u00a0want to get her on her toes for Saturday.”<\/DIV>
\u00a0<\/DIV>
Each rider solemnly nodded after receiving his orders.\u00a0 Then both headed through the draw gate and disappeared\u00a0into the\u00a0final vestiges of\u00a0fog.\u00a0 The backstretch was\u00a0slightly visible\u00a0in the dawn’s early light.\u00a0 But both the club turn and stretch turn were still completely enshrouded.\u00a0 As his fillies’\u00a0faint silhouettes\u00a0approached the 3\/8ths pole, Given reset his stopwatch.\u00a0 Then he clicked it as they sped past that marker.<\/DIV>
\u00a0<\/DIV>
When the fillies disappeared into the fog on the last bend, Frostfang was two lengths in front of her stablemate.\u00a0 We awaited their emergence.\u00a0 First came the sounds of hoof beats.\u00a0 The rhythmic pounding against the slightly damp ground.\u00a0 Da-da-dump!\u00a0 Da-da-dump!\u00a0 Da-da-dump!\u00a0 Louder.\u00a0 Faster.\u00a0 Two shadowy figures emerged.\u00a0 First Frostfang.\u00a0 Ears pinned.\u00a0 Reaching out.\u00a0 Gliding effortlessly.\u00a0 Under wraps.\u00a0 Then Hancock Pond.\u00a0 Ears pricked.\u00a0 Looking around.\u00a0 Choppy gaited.\u00a0 Given groaned.<\/DIV>
\u00a0<\/DIV>
An eighth away from the finish, Cadigan whacked Hancock Pond left-handed.\u00a0 Hard.\u00a0 The big filly then flattened out nicely and got serious.\u00a0\u00a0But she never did cut into her stablemate’s advantage.\u00a0 Frostfang stopped her trainer’s watch in :59 flat, three lengths better than Hancock Pond.\u00a0 Nice solid workout for both.\u00a0 Given smiled.<\/DIV>
\u00a0<\/DIV>
On the way back to the barn Given talked about Frostfang.\u00a0 “I’ll know the instant the\u00a0gate opens\u00a0whether Frostfang has a chance at victory. She’s a very headstrong filly, as you just saw, and if she doesn’t break on top she will have a very hard time getting into the bit. If you had asked me at the end of her juvenile campaign whether she’d have a chance to get into the Bluegrass Oaks I’d have laughed at you. After two turf races to start her career and a narrow loss in a dirt sprint I finally stretched her out to a mile and she won by a measured length with a 90 speed figure.”<\/DIV>
\u00a0<\/DIV>
Given obviously loves this filly.\u00a0 I wish my written words could convey his tone.\u00a0 He continued, “At that point I was debating whether to run her in a stakes or in another allowance for her 3yo debut, and it was actually Laura (Topicount) who persuaded me to try a stakes. So I stretched her to a mile-and-a-sixteenth in a listed stakes and she opened up a five length lead en route to an easy three length win and a 92 speed figure. That performance convinced me she was something special, and I jumped her up to a G1 race next time out. The field came up very tough with the 2005 Juvy Filly Eclipse Winner No Apagues La Luz entered, and going in I told myself to be happy with a second place run. Frostfang had other ideas though. She timed the break perfectly and in what seemed like the blink of an eye she was up by six lengths. That lead grew to nine lengths as the fillies entered the stretch and she was able to hold off a late rally from the Eclipse winner to win her first graded win!\u00a0 What a feeling that was!\u00a0 I was flying for weeks!”<\/DIV>
\u00a0<\/DIV>
The trainer’s tone then got more serious.\u00a0 “She regressed a bit in her next race, finishing third in the Louisiana Oaks. At that point she had two tough graded races in a row and since I had an Oaks spot clinched I wanted to give her an easy spot for her final prep. I decided to drop her to a mile in an attempt to sharpen up her speed. I didn’t have her very sharp for the race and surprisingly enough she got outbroke and fought her jockey the entire time, finishing a disappointing sixth.

That race is a complete toss, and actually the fact that she struggled when dropping in distance has me more convinced that she’ll love the Oaks distance. She will definitely be going for the lead, as my other filly in the Oaks, Hancock Pond, is a dead closer. It’s nice to have two fillies with such completely different running styles entered, and allows me to let both of them run their races without any qualms.

Frostfang is an immensely talented filly who is still learning what it takes to be a professional racehorse. I think she will adore the stretch to nine furlongs and I think if she breaks first she’ll be playing catch me if you can for most of the race!

Good luck to everyone in the race!”

<\/DIV><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bullet :59 Signals All Systems Go<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}