Flutterby Cranked Up for Sunshine Millions Distaff

When Jerry Bozzo sends Flutterby to the Gulfstream Park racetrack Saturday to run in the $200,000 Sunshine Millions Distaff, the 5-year-old homebred mare will serve as a profound source of pride for her nonagenarian breeder/owner/trainer.

 

“She means everything, really. She's what I’ve been in the game for 99 years for,” Bozzo chuckled. “Actually, I am 95 now, you know. I had a birthday.”

 

A Carnegie Mellon and MIT grad, retired civil engineer, glass bottle manufacturer, World War II veteran, and currently an aspiring novelist, Bozzo started breeding his own Thoroughbred stock well before moving to South Florida in 1969. Graded stakes-placed Fluttery is from a long-line of Bozzo homebreds, including Stormy Do, a multiple-stakes winner of $500,000.

 

“I’ve been breeding horses from the first, since I got into the game,” Bozzo said. “Flutterby is a fourth generation. She’s not a freak. She’s a product of my breeding. So I take double the claim there.”

 

Flutterby, who captured a stakes in her fourth start during her juvenile season, has been a challenge for Bozzo due to her high-strung and nervous nature. The daughter of Congrats really blossomed in 2015, capturing three sprint stakes at Gulfstream. She won the Sea Lily in May to establish her then 94-year-old trainer as the oldest trainer to saddle a stakes winner. She finished second in the Princess Rooney (G2) in July, but she came right back with back-to-back victories in the six-furlong Gold Mover in August and seven-furlong Added Elegance Stakes in September.

 

“She’s run awfully well here. She won a seven-furlong race here,” Bozzo said. “The race here is seven furlongs, so I’ve cranked her up for that.”

 

Sent to the starting gate at 2-5 for the seven-furlong Millions Distaff Preview at Gulfstream Park West Nov. 7, Flutterby came up short and finished third after setting a pressured pace, earning a brief freshener.

 

“I brought her back five or six weeks ago. She’s responded very beautifully,” Bozzo said. “She was tired, uncharacteristically. The race was too close to the other race and too close to all the others, the whole progression of races she competed in. She needed the rest.”

 

In the 2015 Distaff, Flutterby finished a solid third, behind Dame Dorothy, who went on to win the Humana Distaff (G1) at Churchill Downs, and Sheer Drama, a multiple Grade 1 stakes winner who is a finalist for older female at Saturday evening’s Eclipse Award dinner at Gulfstream Park.

 

Luca Panici has the return mount aboard Flutterby.

 

“It took him a while to understand her. They have a real harmony together now,” Bozzo said.

 

In the Millions Distaff, Flutterby is slated to face nine Florida-bred fillies and mares, including multiple-stakes winner Dogwood Trail, and Legal Laura, the winner of the Millions Distaff Preview In November.

Jacks or Better Farm’s Dogwood Trail defeated 3-year-old fillies in the Azalea (G3) on the same program as the Princess Rooney at Gulfstream in July.  The daughter of Awesome of Course most recently finished fourth after contesting the early pace in the six-furlong Sugar Swirl (G3), from which she exited with a cut on her left hock, sustained when she impeded favored Stonetastic along the backstretch.

 

“We got real lucky. She came out of it OK. It didn’t bother her,” trainer Stanley Gold said. “Her legs were probably in, because if they were back, they probably both would have gone down.”

 

Both Dogwood Trail and Flutterby have sharp turns of early speed, making for an intriguing matchup.

 

“We’re just going to come out and see how she breaks and go from here. I’m not going to give him any instructions to go or to stay. We’ll take it as it comes up. I don’t think we’ll see her far back,” Gold said. “I have a lot of confidence in her. We’re not going to worry about what everyone else does. We’ll run as it comes up.”

 

Jose Caraballo is slated to ride Dogwood Trail for the first time Saturday.

 

Gil Campbell’s Legal Laura and Orlyana Farm’s My Miss Venezuela, who finished 1-2, respectively, in the Millions Distaff Preview, are scheduled to return in the Distaff.

 

Legal Laura, who came from off the pace and drew off to a 2 ¾-length triumph, faded to fifth after stalking the early pace in the mile Rampart (G3) in her most recent start for trainer Kathleen O’Connell.

 

The Bruno Tessore-trained My Miss Venezuela, will be seeking to regain her best form after finishing a distant third in the Orleans Stakes at Delta Downs and fifth in the Tiffany Lass Stakes at Fair Grounds in her two most recent starts.

 

Robert Perkins and Hinsley Racing Stable’s You Bought Her, who defeated Legal Laura in an optional claiming allowance race at Keeneland in October, heads into the Sunshine Millions Distaff off a third-place finish in the Sugar Swirl.