Tuttipaesi Wins Ginger Brew in U.S. Debut
Valor Ladies LLC’s 3-year-old Irish-bred filly Tuttipaesi raced in Italy and England last year and made an auspicious American debut on New Year’s Day Tuesday at Gulfstream Park when rallying from off the pace to capture the $75,000 Ginger Brew Stakes under jockey Alan Garcia.
A roan/gray daughter of Clodovil, Tuttipaesi was making her first start for trainer Graham Motion and was clearly best to score by two lengths as an 8-to-1 choice over Martin Schwartz’ Wave Theory in the 1 1/16 miles grass course test with Patricia Generazio’s Discreet Marq another three-quarters of a length back in third. Tuttipaesi paid $18 for $2 to win and was timed in 1:42:20 over the ‘firm’ course.
“She came over to run in the Alcibiades at Keeneland (Oct. 5),” explained Motion. “But she got sick in quarantine and didn’t get to run. She came with the reputation of being a bit flighty, but was well-behaved today. We didn’t really do anything with her until we got her down here to Palm Meadows. I’ve been impressed with the way she’s trained, so I wasn’t surprised she ran well today.”
Valor Ladies LLC is a new venture for a syndicate of 26 women with Team Valor Director of Client Relations Megan Jones as general partner. This is their first horse and a portion of her earnings will go to women’s charities.
Team Valor general partner Barry Irwin picked out the filly for private purchase after she won three of her first four starts in Italy. In her final race in Europe Tuttipaesi finished seventh in the Barrett Steel May Hill Stakes (G2) at Doncaster on Sept. 14 for the Valor Ladies syndicate.