My 2015 List of Favorites Must Include Betty
She ain’t perfect, but neither am I. In looking back at a complete season of racing, as I tend to do this time each year, it struck me that one of my most consistent rooting interests in 2015 was for a little filly named Include Betty.
Trained by big Tom Proctor, owned by the former Governor of the Commonwealth, Brereton Jones, and ridden by one or the other of a dynamic duo of the veteran lady, Rosemary Homeister, Jr. and the talented baby face, Drayden Van Dyke, the story of Include Betty had a little something for everyone.
Like many a good adventure, the saga of Include Betty was hatched from obscurity. A bargain $42,000 yearling purchase, the daughter of the multiple graded stakes winner, Include, began her three-year-old season as a maiden. She did run three times in Kentucky as a juvenile, but was unable to find the winner’s circle. Her status quickly changed at three.
As if unleashed by the heavens, Include Betty flew down the middle of the track to become a first time winner on the third day of 2015. It was her first try at Tampa Bay Downs, and it was the kind of last-to-first rally that sticks with you. Despite that, she came back at 18-1 in her stakes debut four weeks later.
Early on the Tampa Bay Downs far turn, Include Betty was as far behind the second to last place horse, as that one was from the leader. In other words, she looked like a no shot sister in her first go against winners. A funny thing happened in the final few furlongs of the Suncoast Stakes, though. Much like in her first go at Tampa, the diminutive late runner began to pick ‘em up and lay them down. She went from last to second in the blink of an eye, and set sail on the loose leader Huasca. That one seemed home free even at the sixteenth pole, but this is exactly what makes Include Betty so much fun to watch. She was motoring down the lane like a Ferrari down the fast lane. Somehow she nailed her competition just before the wire, and Include Betty had gone from maiden to stakes winner in the first month of 2015.
Her graded stakes debut came on the turf, and while her patented rally did come, it was not quite the same effect as her first two starts of the season. Off that Florida Oaks try, Include Betty arrived in Arkansas still a somewhat unknown quantity, but that too, would not last for long.
For the second time in four races, the chestnut filly was let go at 18-1. That would prove to be a big mistake for most bettors, as Include Betty came to Oaklawn Park ready to roll. Coming from her customary spot of last early, she showed off her explosive turn of foot to strike the lead in mid-stretch, before out-gaming Oceanwave to the wire. The neck victory in the tradition rich Fantasy was her first graded stakes score.
Done in by traffic and trouble in the Kentucky Oaks, Betty came from last to pass all but one in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan, before taking her game to the Big Apple. It would be in New York that everything came together for the late April foal. With sizzling early fractions, her competition was just asking to see the little filly do her thing. Sure enough, she exploded on the Belmont Park far turn, and the race was all but over. Include Betty struck the lead early in the lane, and cruised her way home to a 3 ¼ length score in the Grade 1 Mother Goose.
All in all, it was a very good year for Include Betty. In 2015 alone, she sported a record of 11-5-2-1, with earnings of $724,500. She won four stakes, including a Grade 1. More than all that, though, she was one of my favorite horses to watch of the year. She’s no Zenyatta, but without fail, the little filly at the back of the pack always uncorked her run on the far turn. Sometimes it carried her to victory, while other times she simply could not sustain her kick all the way to the wire. She may have lost more than she won this year, but as a fan, she never failed to deliver excitement. What more could we ask? Hopefully more of the same in 2016.