NEWS
Nihei pre-enters Prince Will I Am, Silent Joy in Breeders’ Cup races
Posted: Friday, October 22, 2010 12:49 PM
by Ed DeRosa
Michelle Nihei could become the first woman to win multiple races on a Breeders’ Cup World Championships card as she plans to saddle Prince Will I Am in the Breeders’ Cup Marathon (G3) and Silent Joy in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G2), both on November 5 at Churchill Downs.
Either would be the trainer’s first Breeders’ Cup starter, though she is no stranger to racing’s grandest stages after working with Todd Pletcher before going out on her own in November 2007.
Prince Will I Am won the Jamaica Handicap (G1) for three-year-olds going 1 1/8 miles on good turf to give Nihei her first graded stakes triumph. She trains the Victory Gallop ridgling for Susan and Clinton Atkins’ Casa Farms I, one of Nihei’s first clients.
“It’s been a very, very, very great relationship,” Susan Atkins said. “She’s an incredible horsewoman, and she has such a respect for the horse and the needs of the horse. She just gets them in the right place and is very patient.”
Prince Will I Am would be Casa’s second Breeders’ Cup starter. Tom Amoss saddled Baghdaria to a seventh-place finish in the 2006 Emirates Airline Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1) at Churchill Downs.
Nihei’s other potential starter is Silent Joy, who won a maiden special weight race on August 25 at Saratoga Race Course before finishing fifth, beaten six lengths by possible Juvenile Turf favorite Winter Memories, in the Miss Grillo Stakes (G3) on yielding turf at Belmont Park on October 3. The Kitten’s Joy filly has yet to run on firm turf for owners Danny Gargan, Wachtel Stable, and Brous Stable.
Ed DeRosa is news editor of Thoroughbred Times
