One-eyed filly Hard Not to Love a tribute to Shirreffs' patience
Terry Finley, president and CEO of West Point Thoroughbreds, anticipates a big month on the Kentucky Derby trail given his group campaigns both graded stakes winner Gunmetal Gray and Galilean, Monday’s dominant California Cup Derby winner.
But as head of a large partnership, he cautioned that “a bunch of other horses need our attention.”
Hard Not to Love deserves a mention near the top of that list.
The half-sister to Queen’s Plate winner Wonder Gadot is missing her left eye, and that played into why she was a bit late to the races. The Hard Spun filly proved worth the wait last Saturday when breaking her maiden easily by three lengths at Santa Anita Park.
“We’re kind of like, what do you do now?” Finley said, with the May 3 Kentucky Oaks encroaching. “You’ve only gone three-quarters (of a mile) with the filly and it’s already the middle of February.”
The decision will be up to trainer John Shirreffs, with an allowance for non-winners of two races possible if the division can fill in California.
Finley credited David Ingordo, whose mother, Dotti, is married to Shirreffs, for putting together a partnership on Hard Not to Love for which West Point has a 25 percent stake — even if that didn’t show up in the entries last weekend.
“Paperwork issue,” Finley said.
The reason for a mid-February debut has to do with that missing eye, which already had Hard Not to Love drawing comparisons to the fan-favorite and 2017 Kentucky Derby runner Patch.
“It presented some real challenges to John. He really worked,” Finley said. “He took such personalized care of her. He just needed to bring her along in the starting gate, and she broke like a shot the other day.
“But there was a day when she was really quite intimidated by the starting gate.”
“She really has all along stamped herself as a nice filly,” Finley said. “She’s really a pure athlete. We’ve got a shot to have some fun this spring.”
As Derby fever sets in, West Point has a number of its other runners pointing toward notable stakes races:
• Breaking Lucky will make the second start of his 7-year-old season in Saturday’s Hal Hope (G3) at Gulfstream Park, where he’ll also face Quip in that colt’s 4-year-old debut.
• Excess Capacity, a new acquisition in partnership with Sol Kumin, will target Aqueduct’s March 9 Busher Invitational, an Oaks prep. The last out Jan. 4 maiden winner is now trained by Steve Asmussen.
• That same weekend at Santa Anita, Gunmetal Gray could go in the San Felipe. On that same card, West Point has Kanthaka pointing for the San Carlos (G2) and Giza Goddess targeting the China Doll Stakes.