The morning after her impressive
Lake George score, Winter Memories
grazed and relaxed in her stall while trainer Jimmy Toner, who trained the
filly’s mother, Memories of Silver, to a win in the same race nearly 15 years
ago, further reflected on the differences between the dam and her offspring.
“Her mother was smaller and she
was fearless,” Toner said. “You could put her anywhere, she’d go through
anything, she’d run through a wall. [In the Lake
George ] she was sitting behind two horses and when she got to the
horses [jockey Jerry Bailey] didn’t want to go outside, and there was no room
inside. She pushed herself through the horses. Once she got through, she spurted
clear and opened up to win by a couple of lengths. That kind of thing, you
attribute to the mother. Winter Memories, she’s kind of a big, long striding,
rangy kind of a horse that you wouldn’t consider being that athletic.
“They did it different ways, but
she was impressive in what she did, and how she did it yesterday. I think her
mother [had] an athletic way of doing it, just bullying her way through, but
they both got the job done,” Toner continued. “For a horse to win and then have
her daughter to win the same race, that’s pretty neat.”
Toner confirmed that if all
continues to go according to plan, Winter Memories would run back in the Grade
2, 1 1/8-mile Woodford Reserve Lake Placid on August 21.
“She has a presence about her,”
Toner said of Winter Memories “She knows who she is, and it’s a pleasure to be
around her.”