{"id":24172,"date":"2019-07-04T18:09:13","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T22:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24172"},"modified":"2019-07-04T18:09:23","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T22:09:23","slug":"stronachs-holy-helena-dances-to-queens-plate-tier-two-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/stronachs-holy-helena-dances-to-queens-plate-tier-two-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Stronach\u2019s Holy Helena dances to Queen\u2019s Plate tier two win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years removed\nfrom her famous 2017 Queen\u2019s Plate victory, Holy Helena was back on the track\nand in the winner\u2019s circle at the famous race at Woodbine Racetrack \u2013 though in\na slightly different capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prized filly took\nhome top prize at the tier two Dance Smartly race at Saturday\u2019s running of the\nQueen\u2019s Plate, coming in as the heavy favourite out of Stronach Stables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A prize of $175,000\nawaited the Stronach team and jockey Javier Castellano at the finish line, just\nthe latest in a long line of strong finishes for Holy Helena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dance Smartly was\nthe seventh overall win, sixth stakes win, and fourth graded turf stakes win\nfor the Ontario-bred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m saying the\nCanadian air does a lot of good for her,\u201d said owner Frank Stronach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMike (Doyle, the\nStronach Stable manager based at Woodbine) had her here for a week and a half\nand I think things are great: they work well together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJavier is such a\ngreat rider. He didn\u2019t panic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The five-year old\nHoly Helena first captured the Queen\u2019s Plate in just her three-year old season,\nand didn\u2019t race on turf before the age of four, making Saturday\u2019s victory all\nthe more impressive. Stronach credited her athleticism to her strong bloodline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Stronach family\nname has become synonymous with equestrian sports over the years, with Holy\nHelena handing the family it\u2019s second Queen\u2019s Plate in three years. In 2015,\nShaman Ghost gave Stronach Stables its third Queen\u2019s Plate victory, and the\nfirst since 1997, when Awesome Again won the one-and- a-quarter mile race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve put a lot of\neffort in, a lot of money in, and a lot of love in it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stronach\u2019s first win\ncame in 1994 with the three-year old Basqueian, who passed away shortly before\nlast weekend\u2019s race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe lived a good life\ndown in Florida, and he got a stately funeral\u2026he deserved a stately funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Stronach family\nand Adena Springs have bred and\/or campaigned more than 200 stakes winners,\nincluding winners of both the Preakness and Belmont Stakes in the United States,\nas well as all three classics in Canada. Among these runners are 12 champions\nin two countries, including Horse of the Year and Hall of Famer Ghostzapper \u2013\nthe sire to Shaman Ghost, Real Dude, and Holy Helena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All are from the Awesome Again line of breeding.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two years removed from her famous 2017 Queen\u2019s Plate victory, Holy Helena was back on the track and in the winner\u2019s circle at the famous race at Woodbine Racetrack \u2013 though in a slightly different capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2019-07-04-06.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6hS","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 14:33:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}