Marketing Mix, who was second in last year’s edition of the Breeders’ Cup
Filly & Mare Turf, is back for another try but Glen Hill Farm President Craig
Bernick had an excellent excuse for not being on the Santa Anita grounds Tuesday
morning to watch his stable star prepare.
“Tonight is my grandfather’s 94th birthday and we’re having a big party for
him in Chicago,” Bernick said in reference to Leonard Lavin, who founded the
legendary 400-acre Glen Hill in 1966. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”
A perfect present to mark the special occasion would be another Breeders’ Cup
victory for Lavin, who presented the trophy to himself when One Dreamer won the
1994 Distaff, which was sponsored by Lavin’s Alberto-Culver Corporation.
Bernick has high hopes for Marketing Mix and has long maintained that she is
more talented than One Dreamer.
“She is doing great and she’s even better than she was last year,” he said.
“Maybe her races haven’t been as brilliant this year, but she’s had legitimate
excuses. In the Beverly D. (when she was fourth behind Filly & Mare favorite
Dank) she was coming off a mile and a half race and was wide on both turns and
the winner that day ran a spectacular race. Still, the third-, fourth-, fifth-
and sixth-place horses were only a neck apart.
“In her last race (the Rodeo Drive at Santa Anita), she ran great but we had
some tactical issues. We were worried about the horse behind us instead of the
horse in front (Tiz Flirtatious) and only got beaten by a head. I’m excited
about her chances this year.”
French-bred filly Alterite jogged Tuesday morning at Santa Anita, the day
after shipping from New York with nine other Breeders’ Cup horses trained by
Chad Brown.
Owner Martin Schwartz imported Alterite this summer and turned her over to
Brown following a sixth-place finish in the French Oaks on June 16. The Filly &
Mare Turf was not part of the 2013 schedule for the filly, but was added after
she won the Garden City at Belmont Park and finished second by a neck in the
Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland on October 12.
“I planned on just running her in the Garden City and the Queen Elizabeth and
then shutting her down,” Brown said. “She came out of the Queen Elizabeth so
well — energy level, soundness and looks — and that combined with the more I
looked at her 2014 campaign, there wasn’t any major objectives in the first half
of the year that I had to have her for.
“So we made the decision, Mr. Schwartz and I, to go for this Breeders’ Cup
race and maybe give her a little longer vacation this winter than we had planned
on.”
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