Trainer Billy Boniface thinks he might have a Triple Crown contender in his barn.
Yesterday, after the Boniface-trained Oliver's Twist won his third straight start by 5 3/4 lengths in the $100,000 Maryland Juvenile Championship at Laurel Park, Boniface said he will ship the horse to Florida and prepare to run him Feb. 18 in the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park. In that race, he is expected to meet another Maryland-based runner, Laurel Futurity winner Western Echo.
"This is the best prospect I've had in the barn since 1983," Boniface said, referring to the year that he won the Preakness with Deputed Testamony. "Our goal is going to be the first Saturday in May [the Kentucky Derby]."
Even though the horse faced only modest competition yesterday, Oliver's Twist graduated to carrying 122 pounds around two turns at the 1 1/8th-mile distance for the first time with ease on a sloppy track.
He waited behind pacesetter Flying Punch and then swept by him on the final turn.
Jockey Albert Delgado said, "I wasn't worried about him getting the distance. He is a big, long-striding horse and he had gone seven furlongs in his last start real nice. He won easy today, real easy."
Oliver's Twist is a Boniface home-bred that the trainer sold privately last year to one of his clients, Charles Oliver. The horse was timed in nine furlongs in 1:53.2/5, two seconds faster than it took Quite Proper to win the filly division of the Juvenile Championship one race earlier.
In the Juvenile, Delgado chose to ride A Prudent Belle for owner-trainer Leslie Glazier rather than her stablemate, Quite Proper, who was ridden by Mario Verge.
Heavily favored Special Broad looked like a sure winner until Quite Proper caught her at the 16th pole and rolled on to a two-length win. A Prudent Belle was third.
Glazier, who breeds most of her runners at her Derby Hill Farm in Mount Airy, had purchased Quite Proper as a yearling for $25,000 at the Keeneland, Ky., Fall Sales last year from her Maryland breeder, Bob Manfuso.
Bill Holmes, Glazier's husband, said his wife had lost some horses in high-priced claiming races and had some money to spend. "So she thought she would go shopping for a nice yearling with some potential as a broodmare prospect," Holmes said.
Glazier added, that she was attracted to the filly because she is a Maryland-bred, although she was sold the horse by a Kentucky agent for Manfuso. "I had no idea until after I bought her that she practically came from across the street," Glazier said.
Manfuso's farm is located in Howard County, about 10 miles from Derby Hill.