Sisterly Love proved game on the front end in the $100,000 Doubledogdare (G3) April 18 at Keeneland, dueling the entire trip with multiple Grade 1 winner Emollient to win the 1 1/16 mile main track contest by a neck over a late-closing Moment in Dixie.
Trained by Mark Casse and ridden by Stewart Elliott, Sisterly Love stopped the timer in 1:43.82 for her third career stakes win and second in a graded race.
Sisterly Love, who won an allowance race on Keeneland’s opening day, April 4, went to the lead, along with Emollient, going into the first turn. The two locked up to set fractions of :23.91, :47.35, 1:11.98 and 1:37.30. Sisterly Love, on the inside, edged away from Emollient in deep stretch, then held off a late charge from Moment in Dixie to secure the win.
“I had a great trip. She was comfortable the whole way,” said Elliott. “On the far turn, I looked over and saw Mike (Smith on the favorite, Emollient) and it looked like he was asking her already. I said, ‘Man, I got a chance. I still have some horse left.’ And I did. She finished up.”
The victory, the seventh in 14 career starts, boosted Sisterly Love’s earnings to $427,004 with the $60,000 payday. She has stakes wins in the Ontario Matron (G3) and Trillium S. She is owned by Gary Barber, who purchased her privately in late 2012 from her breeder Kinsman Stable after the filly’s third career start.
Sisterly Love is out of the Dixieland Band mare Odylic, who is a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Dixie Brass and Grade 2 winner Odyle.
Bellamy Road, pegged as one of only two “value sires” for his current crop of 3-year-olds, has also had very strong 2-year-old sales in 2014, with a sales average of $94,000 more than nine times his stud fee at time of conception.
