by Jeff Lowe

John Oxley’s five-time graded stakes winner Snow Dance died on March 28 after a bout with colic that necessitated an emergency Cesarean section. She was 11.

Neither Snow Dance nor her foal by Street Cry (Ire) survived. The Forest Wildcat mare out of Northern Pageant, by Spectacular Bid, resided at Oxley’s Fawn Leap Farm in Midway, Kentucky.

Trained by John Ward Jr., Snow Dance was a graded stakes winner at three, four, and five years old. Her biggest victory came in the 2003 New York Handicap (G2) at odds of 27-to-1.

The gray or roan mare also won the 2001 Lake Placid Handicap (G2), Mrs. Revere Stakes (G2) and Pucker Up Stakes (G3) and ’02 Suwanee River Handicap (G3). She finished second or third in seven other graded stakes races, including a third-place finish in the 2001 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes (G1).

Bred in Kentucky by Aspiration Stable, Snow Dance produced two live foals. The first, a Grand Slam filly named From Scratch, sold for $385,000 and scored two wins last year in Japan. The other foal is a two-year-old colt by Oxley’s Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Monarchos, named Monarch Pass, who sold for $285,000 as a yearling.

Oxley bought Snow Dance for $220,000 in the 1999 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale. She won eight of 25 starts and earned $938,597.

Jeff Lowe is a THOROUGHBRED TIMES staff writer