Groupie Doll, last year’s champion female sprinter,
appeared on the worktab for the first time this year and breezed a bullet three
furlongs in :35 4/5 over the fast main track at Churchill Downs on Saturday
morning.
Working under John McKee, Groupie Doll went the first
eighth of a mile in :11 3/5, ran a quarter-mile in :23 3/5 and galloped out in
:49 2/5.
“It was a good morning to see her back and to tell the
partners that everything went well,” said trainer Buff Bradley, who co-bred and
co-owns Groupie Doll. “She came back good and cooled out good. She’ll tell you
when she wants to do something and she was ready.”
Groupie Doll, a five-year-old chestnut mare by Bowman’s Band,
won three Grade 1 races in 2012, including the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare
Sprint. In her last start of the year, she finished second by a nose to Stay
Thirsty in the Cigar Mile Handicap.
She was given a month off after the Cigar Mile and then was
sent to Bradley’s barn at Gulfstream Park. Unhappy with the way Groupie Doll was
training, Bradley sent her back to his Indian Ridge Farm near Frankfort, Kentucky, for
more R & R. She returned to Churchill Downs in May.
“The big thing today was that she was willing to do it,”
Bradley said. “She was very willing to do it and she wasn’t at Gulfstream.
Sometimes you don’t know with these fillies. They’re a little temperamental and
they might not come back as good as you had hoped, but she seemed like her old
self today.”
Groupie Doll’s three-eighths time of :35 4/5 was the fastest
of 24 at the distance Saturday.
“She has a high-cruising speed and is fast with her stride
without really trying,” Bradley noted.
Bradley added that Groupie Doll could make her next start
in the Grade 1, $500,000 Ballerina at Saratoga on August 23 or the Grade 2,
$400,000 Presque Isle Downs Masters on September 9. Groupie Doll won the Masters by 3
3/4 lengths
last year.
“We’ll keep breezing her and we’ll probably breeze her
every Saturday,” Bradley said. “I know it’ll take about four more works to get
her where we need to be and then we’ll start making a plan.”
Bradley owns Groupie Doll with his father, Fred, and Carl
Hurst and Brent Burns. She has a record of 9-4-2 from 17 starts with earnings of
$1,657,850.
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