Purchased from Kirkwood for $100,000 by Okada Stud at Fasig Tipton Midlantic 2021
Courtesy of the TDN
3rd-Niigata, -9,900,000 ($77,494), Maiden, 1200m, 1:12.1, ft.
LE VERGER (f, 3, Maclean’s Music–Wine Train, by Tiz Wonderful) finished a midfield seventh on her Mar. 5 debut at Hanshin and was the 9-1 fourth choice to show the necessary improvement at second asking. Beaten for speed, Le Verger found a spot slightly ahead of midfield and raced in clear air around the turn. Pulled out towards the center of the strip with a quarter-mile to run, the bay let down nicely, hit the front with about 100 meters to travel and proved 1 1/2 lengths too strong for the competition.
The winner’s dam is a daughter of the stakes-winning Stage Stop (Valid Expectations), herself responsible for SW & GSP Stageplay (Curlin). Wine Train was sold for $25,000 at KEENOV in 2019 and produced the Carpe Diem filly Rafanelli in 2020. She was most recently bred to Instagrand.
Sales history: $31,000 Ylg ’20 KEEJAN; $50,000 RNA Ylg ’20 KEESEP; $100,000 2yo ’21 FTMMAY.
Lifetime Record: 2-1-0-0, $40,644.
O-Normandy Thoroughbred Racing
B-Robert & Lawana Low (KY)
; T-Haruki Sugiyama.