Becausei’mworthit is worth shipping for the Bob Umphrey
Turf Sprint
Though trainer Monte Thomas is stabled at Calder, and his four-year-old filly
Becausei’mworthit exits a local stakes win just three weeks ago in the Cool Air,
the daughter of Indian Express had to take to the road in advance of Saturday’s
$100,000 Bob Umphrey Turf Sprint, shipping down from Ocala on Tuesday.
“I took her right out of here the night of her last race,” Thomas explained.
“She’s always been a very difficult horse to train at a racetrack. She’s real
tough, and if I train her on the track it really takes a lot out of her. She
just pulls so hard and wants to do so much. So I like keeping her at the farm
and away from the track.”
So in lieu of a regular racetrack regiment that is so familiar to most
Thoroughbred race horses, Becausei’mworthit ships and then runs, and then ships
out again to await her next race.
“There’s a training center up north that is a few miles from my farm,” Thomas
said. “There are some horses stabled there and it’s kind of like a track
environment, although not nearly as busy. So I take her there to work and do
most of her training. That way she’s still around horses, but in a quieter
setting.”
Since arriving at Calder on Tuesday, Thomas has sent the filly to the main
track for morning gallops, although she doesn’t make the trip alone.
“She always goes with the pony,” Thomas stated. “That keeps her calm.”
Keeping Becausei’mworthit calm has never been an easy task, and the filly’s
temperament isn’t the sole reason. Earlier this year in February, while being
housed at an equine therapy center in Marion County, Becausei’mworthit was on
site, and by the trainer’s account only a few stalls away, when a hyperbaric
chamber exploded, killing a 28-year-old woman and one horse.
“She was at that equine center when that hyperbaric chamber exploded and that
really rattled her good,” Thomas said. “She was tough to deal with before that,
but you can’t imagine what that did to her. After that we took her right back to
my farm and we decided to give her plenty of time to recover. And we never asked
her to do anything until she wanted to.”
After recording just one official workout at Gunn Farm in Sparr, an
unincorporated community in Marion County, Becausei’mworthit shipped to Calder
for the Cool Air, in which she led at every call en route to a two-length
triumph.
“I though that was a real nice effort,” Thomas remarked. “She’s the kind of
filly that you can’t really rate, you just have to let her go and do what she
wants to do. But (jockey) Jose (Lopez) has been on her enough, he knows that,
and he rode her perfect.”
Off that performance, Thomas was lacking in options for the filly, so he
picked out Saturday’s race against males as her next target.
“There really wasn’t anywhere else to go with her, so we decided we would go
ahead and try this spot,” Thomas said. “I don’t think she’ll have any trouble
running with colts, and then after the race we’ll give her a little more time
off and see what comes up.”
And while the Cool Air was run over the Calder main track and the Bob Umphrey
is slated for the grass, Thomas doesn’t believe a surface switch is going to
prove difficult for his filly.
“I’m not sure the surface makes that much of a difference, I expect her to
run on grass just like she did on the dirt last time.”
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