Wake the Dragon was bred to go a route of ground. Her “dam” Drunk Approach, earned more than $1 million during a versatile career that included victories on all three surfaces, a listed stakes win on the dirt and a Group 2 win on the turf. She is from Americain’s second crop. The son of Dynaformer had already sired Grade 1 winner, and champion 2yo filly, AmericanT in his first crop.<\/p>\n
At the start of the year, Woke the Dragon had proven to be a useful filly, having won several allowance level events, and placing in a listed stakes. Unsurprisingly, she made her seasonal debut in an allowance. This race had actually attracted a stakes quality field, with multiple G3 winners Mill Khani and White Shadow, and listed stakes winners London Opera and Most Definitely going postward. The four year old filly, though, was the one who emerged victorious, cantering home 4 1\/2 lengths ahead of the rest of the field, and posting a 106 SF.<\/p>\n
After that win, the natural next step was stakes competition. Woke the Dragon was sent off the slight favorite in a field of eight. The leggy filly pulled her way to the lead and was perhaps a little too full of herself. She could not quite sustain that pace the whole way, fading in the stretch to third place, behind Ryz Aim and LV Intrepid but earned her best speed figure to date: a 110.<\/p>\n
Wake the Dragon failed to fire in her next start after stumbling at the break. She returned to allowance competition, but this time at 12 furlongs, the farthest she had ever gone. She came home an easy winner and stamped her ticket into the Giving Thanks-G3 at the same distance. She pressed the early pace, and finished third, behind High Dragon and Given’s Mistress.<\/p>\n
She then tackled a listed stakes at 11 furlongs, and rated just behind the leaders in the early going, before battling for the lead at the top of the stretch. Down the stretch, she proved relentless, pulling away to a 2 1\/2 length victory – her first career stakes win. She also earned a 114 SF for the effort. With that victory, her connections sponsored a Grade 1 race – the Skyrim Special. The filly lived up to expectations, winning by three lengths, and with that score, punched her ticket to the Breeders’ Bowl.<\/p>\n
The fans sent her off as the second choice behind No Name Brand. Others in the race included Smart Impactor, back to defend her crown, grade 1 winners Devil’s Dragon, High Dragon, Queen Kam, Workinfordaweekend, The Mark of Dawn, Kraken Evil, Xantico Sili and Blushing Reasons. Once the gates opened, it was a battle between the top two picks – No Name Brand set the early fractions, with Woke the Dragon just behind. Entering the far turn, she swept past that rival, and had more than enough in the tank to hold Smart Impactor safe by 1 3\/4 lengths. It was the first time Lenny had won this race, which was “icing on the cake.”<\/p>\n
Wake the Dragon raced once more, tackling boys in the King Kong Vase-G1, but failed to fire. All in all, it was a solid year, one worthy of championship honors, congratulations!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wake the Dragon was bred to go a route of ground. Her “dam” Drunk Approach, earned more than $1 million<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":438,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[197],"class_list":["post-40466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-2016-eclipse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40466","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\/438"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40466"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40474,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40466\/revisions\/40474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}