She’s not the biggest, her pedigree isn’t the greatest and her legs are even a little crooked. But now, after nearly two years without a stakes win, Silverton Hill Farm’s Ruby Notion made her return to the winner’s circle spectacularly at the Caress Stakes at Saratoga Race Course in New York last Monday.
“She’s very gritty,” said Silverton Hill Farms co-owner Bonnie Hamilton. “She runs as hard as she can run every time…When you have a horse that runs their heart out every time, you always go into a race with a lot of confidence because you know that animal and you don’t have to wonder if they’ve taken the day off.”
Ruby Notion and her jockey, Florent Geroux, left the gates as longshots. Oddsmakers had the line set at 27-1, some of the worst odds in the nine-horse field. But for those brave enough to place a wager, the rewards were even sweeter, with a measly $2 bet paying out more than $55.
“When horses run on this type of ground, it’s just a question of who can handle it the most,” said Geroux in a New York Racing Associate press release. “It looked like she really enjoyed it out there.”
Ruby Notion took full advantage of the “soft” ground. After maneuvering through a crowd in the first quarter of the race, Geroux found space on the outside for the horse to run and make up ground on the front of the pack. Coming into the final turn, she continued to accelerate, gliding into second place. Down the final stretch, Chanteline and Girls Know Best were unable to keep up, allowing Ruby Notion to pull ahead and win by two lengths.
It’s the biggest win of the horse’s career, and it comes at a track that is used to hosting some excellent competition.
“Saratoga is somewhat like Keeneland,” Hamilton explained. “When you go there, you had better have something that you think has got a very good chance…We’ve been going to Saratoga for a long time and never won a flat race there…We’ve probably had 30 horses entered in 30 different races there and that’s the first one that we’ve won.”
For Hamilton, seeing a horse that had lived its entire life at her farm capture the win made it even more special. Ruby Notion and both her parents (sired by Great Notion out of Modena Bay) were raised at Silverton Hill, which means Hamilton has been able to see the horse’s winning mentality from the beginning.
“She is so much like her parents, in that they were both very determined,” Hamilton said. “People think, with racehorses, it’s just a matter of having a fast horse. There are a lot of fast horses that don’t want to run or are not competitive.”
With the Caress Stakes behind her, Ruby Notion will have more chances to run before the year is over. Hamilton says the hope is for two or three more races this year before the winter and then evaluating whether or not the horse wants to continue. After placing first in New York, the races she’ll now be eligible for will feature even stiffer competition; horses with experience winning and potentially stronger bloodlines. But Hamilton won’t let that worry her too much.
“I think after 20 years of racing, I’ve learned that there are a lot of perfect horses that can’t run a bit and a lot of less-than-perfect horses that will run for you every single time,” she said. “I think that’s the best education I’ve got through the years; you can throw out a lot of things you see on paper and what you see with the animal standing in front of you. What wins races is nothing you can see.”
Article originally published in The Springfield Sun.
zack peñalva 