Sassys Tuffy
October 27, 2008
This gelding is a top contender in November’s Bank of America Challenge Championship.
Sassys Tuffy. Photo by Coady Photography.
On November 8, one of the top contenders for the $350,000 Bank of America Challenge Championship (G1) is Sassys Tuffy, a 4-year-old gelding owned by C. Dawn Ivey of Dennis, Texas, bred by her grandfather and trained by her father, C. Dwayne “Sleepy” Gilbreath.
Sassys Tuffy earned a neck victory in the July 12, $114,660 Bank of America Texas Challenge (G1) at Sam Houston Race Park to earn his ticket into the top-flight race at Evangeline Downs. He went 440 yards in :21.645 for his fifth win in 15 starts.
“After the first hundred yards, this horse really likes to pick up the pace and run fast,” said jockey Jose Alvarez, who also rode Sassys Tuffy to a half length victory in the second of two trials June 28. “I’m so happy about this win. I feel truly blessed.”
For his part, Gilbreath is having a banner meet at Sam Houston Race Park. Since the late 1970s, the veteran trainer had based his summer operations at Ruidoso Downs and had been one of the most successful conditioners in the history of the New Mexico track. He’s won the All American Futurity (G1) twice – with On A High in 1983 and world champion Refrigerator in ‘91 – and he has won the Rainbow Derby (G1) a record six times.
But last winter, Gilbreath announced that he was taking a one-year break from Ruidoso to rehabilitate some horses on his ranch at Brock, Texas, about 300 miles northwest of Houston. He closed the Sam Houston season as one of the track’s leading trainers.
“He’s having a really good meet,” said Ivey of her father. “This is the first time he has been this close to home in the summer in a long time, and I think he’s enjoying it.”
Gilbreath said Sassys Tuffy “broke really good and made a comeback at the end to pass up (runner-up) Diamond Tres Seis for an exciting finish.”
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Sassys Tuffy was bred by Joe A. Mize of Sumner, Texas, a 40-consecutive-year breeder who died in August 2006, just days after the gelding won the Ford New Mexico Juvenile Challenge (G3) at Ruidoso Downs.
Mize was the father of Gilbreath’s wife, Joanie, and Ivey’s grandfather. Ivey acquired Sassys Tuffy and two mares, including the gelding’s dam, from the Mize estate in October of last year.
The winner’s share of the Bank of America Texas Challenge purse – the second-largest in the stakes’ 16-year history – boosted Sassys Tuffy’s bankroll to $145,579. With third-place finishes in both the Sam Houston Classic (G2) and Refrigerator Handicap (G1), he has raised it to $162,289. In addition to his victory in the Ford New Mexico Juvenile Challenge, the gelding’s stakes includes a third-place run in last year’s Dash For Cash Derby (G1) at Lone Star Park, and he was a finalist in the $395,476 Texas Classic Derby (G1).
The Dash For Cash and Texas Classic derbies are both run at 440 yards, and Sassys Tuffy’s success in quarter-mile races has Ivey thinking the gelding might be more effective at that distance. Consider that Sassys Tuffy has raced eight times at 440 and has faced Grade 1 competition in five of those starts, and 72 percent of his earnings – $116,896 – has come from his quarter-mile sprints.
“He hasn’t been a really good breaker, and I had a feeling that if he broke, he would run strong (in the Bank of America Texas Challenge),” she said. “He hadn’t been acting badly in the gate – he’d just get in there and clown around and look at the other horses around him.
“He broke a lot better in this race than he had been,” Ivey added. “I hope he’s starting to come around and get more mature mentally. We were really excited to win this race because it was with a horse that my grandfather bred. That meant a lot to our whole family.”
The horses Sassys Tuffy defeated in the Bank of America Texas Challenge entered the race with combined earnings of $1,525,258, including 2007 Texas Classic Derby (G1) winner Reba Cleata and Grade 1 winners Miss Kips Streakin and This Snow Is Cold.
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Veteran Performers
For most of the horses competing at the Bank of America Challenge Championships, the experience will be a new one. But three of them are returning with lots of experience under their belts.
Williams Racing Stable’s WRS Special Shoe is an experienced veteran. He has traveled the country from Louisiana to California, Minnesota to Texas. The veteran 6-year-old has won 34 percent of his starts, and finished in the top 3 in 80 percent of them. He has bankrolled $509,514 for owner Randall William’s farm, located in La Center, Kentucky.
On November 8, he will make his fourth appearance at the Challenge Championships – in 2004 he competed in the Ford Challenge Championship (G1) at Sam Houston Race Park; in ‘05 he was third in the Bayer Legend Derby Challenge Championship (G1) at Los Alamitos; and 2006 saw him finish second by a scant nose in the MBNA America Challenge Championship (G1) at Lone Star Park.
The son of First Down Laveaux will return to compete in the premiere event, the Bank of America Challenge Championship (G1).
Two other horses will be showing up for the third time at the Challenge Championships. They include Walter and Pat Fletcher’s First To Ramble and Randee Fagan’s Eye Caughtcha Peekin.
First To Ramble will contest the Red Cell Distance Challenge Championship (G1), a race he finished third in last year. He enters the race on a three-race win streak, notching daylight victories in the John Deere Bonus Challenge Mean Competitor Stakes at Canterbury Park; and the Red Cell Central Distance Challenge and Covered Bridges Stakes (G3) at Prairie Meadows.
The 7-year-old son of legendary stallion First Down Dash will be making his 50th lifetime start. He has won 19 races and earned $265,663.
The 6-year-old mare Eye Caughtcha Peekin won the John Deere Distaff Challenge Championship (G1) in 2006, and finished fifth in last year’s edition of the race. This is her third try at the race.
The winner of nine of 19 starts and earnings of $176,827, she comes into the race off a neck victory in the Kool Kue Baby Handicap at Lone Star Park – that race named for the sport’s all-time leader in stakes victories who won the 1996 AQHA Challenge Championship (G1) and 1998 MBNA America Challenge Championship (G1) and closed her illustrious career with a victory in the very first Challenge Championship distaff race offered – the Centaur Challenge Championship (G1).
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