Attard pins Woodbine Mile hopes on Glenville Gardens

The Attard family is hoping the 21st running of the $800,000 Ricoh Woodbine Mile culminates with a garden party on the Woodbine lawn next Saturday, Sept. 16.

Trainer Sid Attard and his wife Janice are pinning their hopes on Glenville Gardens for a turf winner’s circle celebration on Woodbine Mile day.

Glenville Gardens, who has gone from a $40,000 claimer to two-time Woodbine Mile starter, was claimed by Attard’s wife as a sophomore. Now five, the Street Cry-Navy Gardens gelding has won nine of his 19 career starts while earning $576,705 in purses, and is six-for-10 on Woodbine’s E.P. Taylor turf course.

The Attards took a chance on the well-bred three-year-old as he had won a stakes race at two and still fit the conditioned classes at the time. 

“I like to take shots like that,” said the Canadian Hall of Fame trainer. “With classy horses, sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. When they’ve got class and they’ve got a little breeding, sooner or later they’re going to show it.”

Those are words of wisdom Attard has taken to heart from one of his owners of 40 years, Bob Harvey. “He told me all the time, ‘when there’s breeding, sooner or later it’s going to show.’ And I believed him, it’s true.”

There’s no doubt Glenville Gardens has shown his class and exceeded the expectations the Attards had the day they made the claim. “When you claim a horse, you hope he’s going to make maybe $50,000, nothing like this. We got really lucky. But he always had the class, he’s always been a nice horse.”

At the start of the season, Glenville Garden reverted to some of his old stubborn antics he showed early in his career, refusing to train. He finished seventh in his season’s debut in June in the Connaught Cup (Gr. 2) so Attard gave him some time off at his farm to freshen up and he returned to winning form in a July 22 allowance race then finished a game third after being blocked at the top of the stretch in his attempt to repeat in the Play the King Stakes (Gr. 2) on August 19.

“He ran a really, really good race. He was kind of jammed behind horses, he had an excuse. I’m not saying he could have won it, but you never know. He came out of the race good and he’s been training well. As a matter of fact, we breezed him today [Saturday],” said Attard of a five-furlong work in 1:00.4 on the all-weather track at Woodbine. “Last time, he worked :59 and I told my exercise boy that works him all the time, ‘please don’t go so fast with him’ and he did his best to slow him down. He worked very, very well. We were so happy.”

Attard knows the Woodbine Mile is a competitive spot for Glenville Gardens, but is hoping for a better result than last year’s seventh-place finish in which he was sent postward at odds of 26-1 and led through the first three-quarters of the mile. 

“Last time, he went to the lead and I was surprised,” said Attard, who won his first Woodbine Mile start in 2001 with Numerous Times. “But Luis Contreras is going to ride him and he knows him well. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to send him to the lead.”