It’s with far less fanfare than one season ago that Joyful Victory
begins her 2012 racing campaign on Wednesday at Fair Grounds.
An
early favorite for the 2011 Kentucky Oaks, Joyful Victory was one of the
most prominent horses last winter at Oaklawn Park, where she lived up
to early hype with a pair of blowout stakes wins in the Honeybee and the
Fantasy. But the April 10 Fantasy would prove to be the high-water mark
of the filly’s year. She wound up a decent fourth in the Kentucky Oaks
but subsequently went off form, her final start at 3 a distant and
disappointing fifth-place finish in the July 23 Coaching Club American
Oaks.
Trainer Larry Jones thinks a knee chip Joyful Victory
harbored at the time ended up bothering the horse more than her
connections had first realized. That problem was surgically corrected
months ago, and Jones hopes Joyful Victory now can follow through on the
promise she showed in those early-season Oaklawn races. And this time
around, with soon-to-be-named champion Havre de Grace residing in the
same barn, Joyful Victory can play the role of understudy rather than
star.
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