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• 2 YEAR OLD COLT ON DIRT
• 2 YEAR OLD FILLY ON DIRT
• 2 YEAR OLD COLT ON TURF
• 2 YEAR OLD FILLY ON TURF
• 3 YEAR OLD COLT ON DIRT
• 3 YEAR OLD FILLY ON DIRT
• 3 YEAR OLD COLT ON TURF
• 3 YEAR OLD FILLY ON TURF
• OLDER HORSE ON DIRT
• OLDER MARE ON DIRT
• OLDER HORSE ON TURF
• OLDER MARE ON TURF
• SPRINTER ON DIRT
• SPRINTER ON TURF
• TRAINER OF THE YEAR
• HORSE OF THE YEAR

2009 awards home

Champion Older Dirt Mare

SLAVE TO AMBITION

4yo filly - Distorted Humor x Aptitude x Storm Cat

OWNER/TRAINER – Gwyneth (Chilcoat)

RECORD: 2009: 12 / 5-0-2
LIFETIME EARNINGS: $2,315,403

2009 Stakes:

WON: Breeders Bowl Distaff (G1), The Very Vane (G1), Vermont Is For Lovers (G1), Good Times Handicap (G2), Fort Lostinthewoods Misery Stakes (G2), The Daylight T(IRE) Special

3RD: Orange Blossom (G1), Superfilly Handicap (G3)

Ambitious "Ambition" In a Decisive Decision

By- Conniecpu

As a two-year-old, Slave To Ambition didn't appear to be on any fast track to anywhere. Slow-rolling through a pair of allowance wins after taking three starts just to notch a maiden win, it wasn't until her eighth career start that she even found her way into stakes company.

Of course, she registered a win in that stakes debut, the seven furlong Scraggly Stud Challenge, but even then she wasn't exactly on target to make a monumental splash in the racing universe. Now making her third start as a sophomore, she was a non-threatening third in the Mellow Mud before stepping into graded company and chugging home sixth in the Grade I Correlation Coefficient.

Talented? Seemingly. Exceptional? Not so much.

Moreover, her forays into ambitiousness seemed to set her back, responding a bit better to cautiousness and incremental tinkering.

Yet, quickly, things seemed to click. Perhaps it was the transition to route racing, perhaps just maturity. Whatever the catalyst, Slave To Ambition posted a pair of wins and a second in her next three starts and while those minor stakes performances in short fields didn't register as utterly meaningful, it did seem to mark a turning point for the brown daughter of Distorted Humor.

Reading right between the lines on her resume, it appeared as though she had found her ideal distance range - a mile to a mile and an eighth. Though she had won several times sprinting, she had now won a pair of stakes races at nine furlongs and in her lone start to that point going farther, she wilted late after holding a clear lead eight and a half furlongs into the race.

Just to punctuate that point, she subsequently and quickly registered the finest win of her career to that point, upsetting the Grade III Ontario Breeder's Bowl Oaks in dominant fashion with a huge speed rating of 114.

Just when things seemed to be picking up inertia and Slave To Ambition was taking steps in leaps and bounds, she was eased in the Grade II Cotton Handicap, and vanned back to the barn.

Without a clear reason for the scary episode, Slave To Ambition resumed training within a few days and remained on schedule for her sophomore finale, the Grade III Annie Oakley. With skepticism surrounding her soundness following the debacle in the Cotton, she was dismissed at nearly 7-1 in the Annie Oakley and promptly rallied to a convincing victory in a rapid time.

So, with a juvenile campaign that evolved in a steady, deliberate manner and then a sophomore campaign that had its share of ups and downs, but was ultimately revealing, was there any plausible way to predict what was to come at age four?

Presumably, the initial omen, an uninspiring fifth place finish in the Grade III Sabian Handicap, was not the way that the connections had hoped that Slave To Ambition would transition into the older filly and mare ranks after winning her sophomore finale so impressively.

But alas, with deference to her name, she was ambitiously spotted following that loss, sent to Vermont for the Grade I Vermont Is 4 Lovers.

Despite breaking from post thirteen, despite being 12-1, despite facing a half-dozen rivals with more than a million dollars in earnings, Slave To Ambition lived up to her name and set the stage for a championship season with a powerful victory.

From Vermont it was off to New York to prep for the Orange Blossom in the Daylight T Special, a race that she won nearly as impressively as she won her Grade I a month earlier. Though just a minor stakes, Slave To Ambition easily defeated three stakes winners, including graded stakes winning millionaire All The Riches.

Unfortunately, the prep race for the Orange Blossom resulted in victory, but the target race itself did not. She finished third in the Orange Blossom, but hardly embarrassed herself in the process while facing ten graded stakes winners in that field, four of those with earnings in excess of a million dollars, finishing in front of, among others, Black Flag Flying, winner of the Grade I Movieland Starlet at age two, runner-up in the Grade I Black Middle Flower at age three, and ultimately, the winner of the Grade I Breeder's Bowl Distaff that same season.

So while losing the Orange Blossom was hardly a cause for concern, her subsequent defeat, a double-digit length ninth place finish in the lowly Senior Rizzo Challenge may have been. It seemed almost incomprehensible that she would so much as be defeated by a field of low-level stakes rivals, much less absolutely annihilated. Immediately, skeptics again began looking back to her start in the Cotton the prior year and speculating that something was severely amiss with Slave To Ambition.

Again, the connections reassured the press and public that the filly was fine, that she had merely had one of her bad days. Again she resurfaced on the track in the morning within days, resuming her regular training and it was announced the following week that she wouldn't miss a beat and head straight to Missouri for the Grade II Fort Lostinthewoods Misery.

Though not exactly a premier stop in a campaign towards year-end honors, the Fort Lostinthewoods Misery drew a small, but quality field, with all but one of her six rivals boasting a graded stakes win, two of those owning more than a million dollars in winnings. Showing good early speed from the gate, Slave To Ambition took command heading into the backstretch run, opened up entering the far turn, and held on to win fairly easily over, ironically, the lone contestant in the field that lacked a graded stakes win.

Clearly, the notion that Slave To Ambition was damaged goods was off the mark, but it begged the question: what causes such vast variance in efforts from race to race when the level of competition clearly cannot be blamed?

So without further ado, she set out to prove that her on-track gaffes were not merely some sort of fluke, finishing eighth in the Grade I Steadhemp three weeks later. Undoubtedly, the field was hardly a cakewalk. It was a deep, competitive group of fillies and mares, but one which she certainly had the credentials and past exploits to warrant serious consideration and frankly, every right to win.

This time around, there were no rumors of failing health or busted appendages, but rather murmurs that the connections were making truckloads of money betting on her when they knew that she would run to her potential and shying far away from the windows when she would invariably falter.

Of course, these suspicions were quickly and summarily dismissed, but they were in full flight once more when she resurfaced at California for the Grade I Very Vane on the fourth of July. With twenty-two minutes to post, she was hammered down to 4-5. At thirteen minutes to post, she was 6-5. At eight minutes to post, she was 5-2. At post time, she was all the way up to 6-1, and when the gates opened, she was gone, goodbye.

Racking up a career best speed rating of 115, she rallied from off the pace to win in hand, by nearly two lengths.

Innuendo waxed and then waned, but there was no disputing the powerful win.

Until six weeks later. Using the Victory Jordan Memorial in Oregon as a 'tune-up' for bigger races to come, Slave To Ambition was 7-5 in a field of five, with $641,323 of the $655,103 in the show pool bet on her. Not only did Nasher, a reformed claimer and longest shot on the board win the race, but Keith Proehl aboard Slave To Ambition had his mount in mid-pack throughout, put away the stick mid-stretch when well behind, and was nailed for third at the wire.

The public outcry was rather boisterous, with some ready to lynch Proehl for his aloof voyage around the track and others again believing this filly was a money-making machine in more ways than one. Proehl, when questioned, had the same reaction as the connections, "she just flat didn't handle this track at all."

In their well-documented case, the Sim Horse Investigative Team (the law enforcement division of Sim Racing with an acronym that most prefer not to use) conducted a four week query into the speculation and rumors that had been circling around Slave To Ambition for months. In the end, despite the group's conclusion that there was an odd pattern of wagering on several scrutinized races that originated at an outlet in Michigan, there was insufficient evidence to support concerns that any conduct could be construed as criminal, or even unethical.

Coinciding with the conclusion of the investigation, Slave To Ambition was hours away from a return to graded company in the Grade I Superfilly over a wet track in New York. Despite her crushing loss in the Steadhemp over that track months earlier, Slave To Ambition was 6-1 at post-time and this time, ran to that price, making a solid run from off the pace to finish third. Beaten just a length and a half, her defeat came at the hands of millionaires Demonic Presence, runner-up, and the winner, Kotton Kandy, an off-track specialist who had won the Grade I Delaware Distaff several months earlier.

Without missing a beat, Slave To Ambition boarded a plane bound for Dubai three days after the Superfilly, accepting an invitation from Sheikh Mohatma Oil-Mocktune to participate in the Group II Good Times Handicap.

Again catching a wet-track, ironically in the desert of Dubai, Slave To Ambition benefited from several scratches due to track condition and emerged an easy two length winner. The win served several purposes, in addition to boosting her graded earnings to a level which all but guaranteed a start on Breeder's Bowl Day, it marked a rare occasion where she managed to piece together consecutively brilliant efforts. Of course, it was confirmed by the connections that it was merely a coincidence that such an accomplishment occurred immediately following the Sim Horse Investigative Team's inquiry.

Racking up the frequent flier miles, Slave To Ambition voyaged back to the other side of North America, bound for California and the Breeder's Bowl Distaff.

In light of the fact that she was returning to a dry surface in California, was facing several rivals that had recently defeated her, including both Kotton Kandy and Demonic Presence, as well as the reality that she had traversed the universe in a matter of weeks - the expectations for Slave To Ambition in the Distaff weren't exceptionally high - even with her sudden ability to run consistently well regardless of the wagering patterns.

Sent off at nearly 8-1 in the field of fourteen, including eight with more than one million in winnings, and nobody in the race that hadn't scored a graded stakes win, was just one of many possibilities in a field that defined the notion of contentiousness.

Employing the strategy used for most of her best recent performances, Slave To Ambition settled mid-pack, remained there to the far turn, and then advanced quickly outside of her rivals inside the five-sixteenths pole.

Sweeping five-wide leaving the turn, she drew abreast four rivals, all stampeding in unison past the eighth pole. As the group neared the sixteenth pole, it was Slave To Ambition that edged away from her rivals, taking a half-length lead. Racing further out in the strip, 20-1 longshot The Word had rallied from farther back and was drawing closer to Slave To Ambition with every step.

One hundred and fifty yards from the wire, it appeared that The Word had the momentum and was poised to eventually wear down Slave To Ambition. However, despite the momentum of The Word and the fact that she was wearing down her rival, Slave To Ambition was resolute, digging in, losing the lead very late, only to re-rally and get a head, then a neck, and eventually half of her torso back in front of The Word as they crossed the wire.

The victory in the Distaff was an amazing punctuation mark on a story-book season.

Having emerged from two seasons of relative obscurity to catapult herself into the limelight both with on-track exploits and with off-track rumors, big wins, big losses, and bigger headlines, Slave To Ambition separated herself not only from the filly and mare division with her season, but in terms of her "celebrity", she was arguably the most notorious thoroughbred throughout the second half of 2009.

It was largely her Breeder's Bowl victory that earned her this season's Older Filly/Mare Eclipse, the win of importance that moved her to the top of the class. Still, one has to wonder, had she ran second or third, would there have been a more likely winner?

On paper, in terms of statistics, perhaps yes, she would have been an inferior choice without the signature Distaff victory. But with her amazing ascent to prominence, her infamous mid-season scandal, and her uncanny resemblance to the name by which she is known, Slave To Ambition is undoubtedly the horse of 2009 that stokes the imagination more than any other.