A Whole Lot of Awesome

By Dana Byerly, Hello Race Fans Co-founder

Awesome Feather, the current Juvenile Filly champion makes a return to racing today at Belmont Park in the third race, the Le Slew Stakes. When last we saw our heroine, she capped off her perfect six race juvenile campaign with a win in the Breeders’ Cup. Two days later she was sold for $2.3 million in the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November Select Mixed Sale to Frank Stronach. In January her racing career was thrown into question when an injury emerged. She made a brief return to the work tab in the spring but was taken out training again until the summer.

If you’re not familiar with Awesome Feather, here are the replays we could dig up on YouTube. The JJ’s Dream was her second race and the Susan’s Girl was her fourth race. Pay special attention to her stretch run in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, she pulls some serious psych-ops on R Heat Lightening by bumping into her in the stretch a few times, a technique Personal Ensign was fond of!

UPDATE: Awesome Feather wins in her return!

2011 Le Slew Stakes

2010 JJ’s Dream Stakes

2010 Susan’s Girl Florida Stallion Series

2010 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies

Best of luck to the champ for a victorious return.

Also awesome is Keeneland’s opening day card on Friday. In addition to two nice stakes races, which will be broadcast on Versus, there’s a loaded allowance race that features many stakes caliber turf horses looking for class relief. Also notable is the U.S. return of Sweet Ducky, a horse that was sold to the Chechen President last year from the Derby trail to race in the UAE Derby (he finished 13th). This is first start since that race.

Grab a free Past Performance from our friends at Brisnet!

Be sure to check out Introduction to Class before diving in.

If you’re looking for an easy way to keep up with awesome horse racing blogs, you’re in luck. Point your browser to Turf, an International Gathering of Horse Racing Bloggers. I’m proud to be associated with this illustrious group of smart and accomplished bloggers, and also proud of the strong participation of the HRF Crew! You can also follow along via Twitter at @turfbloggers.

And filed under “not so awesome” is news that Cape Blanco, winner of the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic on Super Saturday (replay), was retired due to an injury he sustained during the race, we wish him the best of luck for a speedy recovery.