Page 19 - April 2007 The Game
P. 19

Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper The Game, April 2007 19
Robert Tiller (276 51 45 40 $2,960,572)
Robert Tiller is starting his 36th season train- ing horses and more than any- thing, he’d like to finally win a Queen’s Plate.
“I’ve been
training since
1972,” he says. “I haven’t been able to win it in almost forty years. I’ve been second in 1975 with Nearthehighsea, and Win City came second in 2001. The Sam- Son filly Dancethruthedawn beat us half a length.”
Tiller has a full complement of runners to start the season.
“We’ve got 45 in training, so we’re pretty busy,” he says. “We’ve got 40 at Paul Buttigieg’s farm and another 16 in Kentucky – those are all two year olds at a training centre outside Louisville. In this game you always need new stock. We’ve got a lot of two year olds to draw from and we’re hoping a lot of those turn out.”
Tiller also has some good ones hoping to capitalize on last year’s strong performances.
“We’ve got Midnight Shadow, the three year old filly that won three Stakes last year. She was a Sovereign Award finalist. She’s a solid filly. She won’t be running in the first few weeks because she’s headed to some of the Stakes coming up later on. As far as older horses, we’ve got Are You Serious and Dave the Knave - they both won Stakes last year. Twisted Wit will be back. He won a Stakes last year. We’ve got a couple of three years olds, a horse called Kiss The Girls who won the only start of his career going six furlongs in the fall. Looks like he could be a good horse. And of course we have Dancer Bajan who won two Stakes in the fall. He and Kiss The Girls
are eligible for the Plate.”
From Stakes winners to claimers to
un-raced three year olds, Tiller has his hands full with a wide variety of stock.
“We’ve got some tough claimers,” he says with a voice filled with admiration. “Like Pretty Prissy, Inaminute and Friendship on Fire. They’re hard knock- ing horses who will win their share of races. Then there’s Ascot Dancer and a decent three year old filly called ShirleyMaryandFlo.”
ShirleyMaryandFlo? Is that the distaff answer to Curly, Larry and Moe?
“It’s a long story,” laughs Tiller.
Hopefully ShirleyMaryandFlo will end up in a race with Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk and Woodbine announcer Dan Loiselle will get to dip into his bag of Three Stooges gags.
Scott Fairlie (209 42 38 23 $1,621,665)
allowances races at Philly. Carrrington is a six year gelding who should be competitive around the 40-50 claim mark. He was also in Philadelphia. He ran once and won his race which was a four other.”
Fairlie is looking forward to running his Ontario-sired four year old filly, Sea of Moulin, who came first for him in three allowance races last year, running up an impressive $180,092 on her season.
“She’ll probably start out in two other than level at 5/8ths,” he told The Game. “They’re all going 5 furlongs at the start, but she can go further. She won her three races going three quarters.”
Fairlie is also preparing the extremely versatile Miss Dorothy who hasn’t yet found a surface to her disliking.
“She is a five year old mare and she won on every surface last year,” says Fairlie with a palpable tone of respect in his voice. “She won on the original dirt track, she won two on the turf, she won on the inner track and then she won on the polytrack. I ran her six times, she won four and had a fourth. She’s eligible for four other than allowance. That’s the best horse I’ve probably got on the farm, but I’m always looking for a better one.”
Michael DePaulo (207 32 27 26 $2,055,881)
After a career season, Mike DePaulo has every reason to be excited about returning to Woodbine.
“We’ve got the
best bunch of two
years olds we’ve ever had, “he says enthusiastically over the phone from the paddock at Gulfstream. “We have at least 20. It’s the most money we’ve ever spent. We’ve bought horses for $110,000, $130,000, even $140,000. We bought a
bunch in the States for 75K, 80K and 90K. We have several of Bold Executives. My owners, Mario Forgione of Henley Farms and David James, who owns Shillelagh Slew, they’ve bought a few. I have new clients, Lana Sniderman and Spencer Berg, they bought a full brother to Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk for $140,000.”
DePaulo has been in South Florida since the end of December. He took a cruise with his wife Josie in early March and she has returned to Woodbine where they already have 34 horses stabled. I ask him to tip me on a horse ready and primed.
“Well, it’s not much of a tip,” he says. “But Shillelagh Slew is doing really well. He’s going to come back and run in the Vigil Stakes at 7 furlongs on April 28th. He ran a real good race going 7/8ths last year. He’s real good off the layoff. He actually ran his best number in his first start last year. We’ll have a nice fresh horse to run and he’s bigger and stronger. I think he can be even a better horse.”
It still remains to be determined just how good Shillelagh Slew was last year. He ran in all three of the Triple Crown races, finishing 5th in the Queen’s Plate, 3rd in the Breeders’ Stakes and crossing the wire second in the Prince of Wales before being moved up to first when Malakoff was disqualified. That stew- ards’ decision is still under appeal and hopefully will be resolved by the time this issue of The Game is published.
“We’ll find out sometime in March, the 23rd or 25th, they’ve got the hearing set,” says DePaulo, with slight aggrava- tion in his voice. The idea of possibly hav- ing $300,000 in purse earnings taken back is not a pleasant thought to him.
Continued Page 20
Robert Tiller
Scott Fairlie had a very satisfying 2006, ending up 5th in wins and 9th in money won. Like many trainers, he’s been a little frustrated by the uncompromising climate.
Scott Fairlie
“Training is always a day by day thing,” says Fairlie. “Because of the cold weather, we’re not accomplishing what we want to.”
You could hardly accuse the guy of working with an empty barn as he quickly identifies several horses he thinks will justify his hard work.
“There’s Ruby Wild, a five year old gelding that I claimed last fall,” he says. “I sent him away to Philadelphia and he’s going to ship back. He’s run three times and won two and came third in the other. The two wins at Philadelphia were both
Mike De Paulo
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