Thoroughbred trainer Roger Attfield, who is based in Canada, has been training horses for a very long time. He's won a lot of important races in Canada and he was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1999. But a Breeders' Cup victory had eluded him until his filly Perfect Shirl captured the 2011 Filly and Mare Turf.
"I've had second in these races and I kind of wondered if I was ever going to get anything, but bless her heart, she did it for me," a thrilled Attfield said following the big win on November 4.
Since coming to Canada from his native England as a young trainer in 1970, Attfield has had tremendous success. He's trained three of the six winners of the Canadian Triple Crown, including back to back winners with Kinghaven Farms' With Approval and Izvestia (the other winner was Peteski). He has earned a record eight Sovereign Awards as the top trainer in Canada. He has trained eight winners of the Queen's Plate, Canada's elite race for 3-year-olds. His horses have won more than 40 divisional titles (as of 2010) and six Horse of the Year awards.
He has more than 1,700 wins, despite racing mostly in Canada where the season is short. His lifetime in-the-money percentage is close to 50 per cent, and in 2011 (as of November 1) it is an astounding 53 per cent.
But that Breeders' Cup win kept slipping out of his grasp.
Attfield and the Breeders' Cup
Before 2011, Attfield had run 14 horses in Breeders' Cup races going back to 1988. He had second-place finishes with Play the King in the 1988 Sprint and With Approval in the 1990 Turf.
Other good placements included a third with Primaly in the 1997 Juvenile Fillies and fourth in Skip Away's 1997 Classic with Whiskey Wisdom. Skip Away won in 1:59 flat for the mile and a quarter, the fastest time ever recorded for the Classic.
Then along came a 4-year-old filly named Perfect Shirl, owned and bred by Canadian diamond magnate Charles Fipke, who hadn't found the winner's circle in 15 months.
Perfect Shirl had not been doing as well as expected — not badly, just never quite getting the job done. Prior to the Breeders' Cup, she had made 14 lifetime starts but only cashed a winning ticket three times. However, half of her races were in stakes company, and usually she brought back a decent cheque while racing against the likes of Perfect Jewel and Harmonious.
In 2011, racing at Woodbine, she had a second and two thirds, but just couldn't get that win. Still, Fipke and Attfield decided to take a chance and enter her in the Breeders' Cup $2-million Filly and Mare Turf.
When Attfield saw the condition of the turf on race day at Churchill Downs, he wondered if the filly was up to the task, especially as he had decided not to run her in the G1 E.P. Taylor at Woodbine specifically because the course came up soft.
"When I ran her on 'good' going before, she never really handled it that well," he said. He knew she was ready to win a big one, but the Churchill turf condition made him doubt that his filly would be able to perform at her best.
With top fillies and mares like Aruna, Stacelita, the unbeaten European filly Nahrain and defending champion Shared Account in the field, Perfect Shirl, ridden by John Velasquez, went off at 27-1 odds. The betters had overlooked the invader from Canada.
Perfect Race For Perfect Shirl
Before the race got underway, there was drama. As she was warming up, Announce became fractious and backed into the side of the horse ambulance and the rail, cutting her hock. She was a vet scratch.
At the start, Mist For Me stumbled. Dubawi Heights, Dynaslew and Stacelita went to the front, but the field was bunched around the first turn, with just seven lengths separating first and last. The front-runners continued to shuffle positions as they swept around the course together and the rest were strung out a bit more, with Misty For Me running last.
As the field turned for home, third-running Stacelita, who had been in tight quarters on the rail, finally had racing room, but had nothing left. Instead, it was Nahrain and Shared Account who made their moves. Perfect Shirl had been gradually working her way forward, apparently unnoticed, from well back. She blew by in deep stretch to win, leaving Nahrain, Aruna and Distorted Legacy fighting it out behind her. In the end, it was Nahrain who got second, a nose in front of Misty For Me, who came from last to nab third money. She was followed by Distorted Legacy, Aruna, Dubawi Heights, Shared Account, Cambina, Harmonious, Stacelita and a very tired Dynaslew. Dynaslew showed signs of lameness and was vanned off.
Attfield and Fipke were overjoyed by their first-ever win in a Breeders' Cup race.
"As soon as I saw her come down the straight the first time, I thought, 'Oh, my God, we've got a chance," Attfield said. "I had my doubts about running her. I was very concerned because she's never been able to handle a soft course. Once I saw how she was moving down the backside, I could see she was moving beautifully and I became very excited."
"It's really a team effort," said Fipke. "There are so many people who worked together to make this happen. It's just been wonderful. We didn't expect to win this against such stiff competition."
And how did Attfield feel when she won? "I'm ecstatic!" the normally-calm trainer said with a big grin.
The win boosted Perfect Shirl's career earnings to $1,390,729.
Perfect Shirl: Bred To Achieve
The win is especially meaningful for Fipke because he bred and owned both the sire and the winner.
Perfect Shirl is a Kentucky-bred by the Irish-bred Perfect Soul, a course record-setting miler by Sadler's Wells out of a Secretariat daughter. Perfect Soul raced 21 times at ages 4, 5 and 6, with seven wins, five seconds and a third. He was Champion Turf Male in Canada at age 5. Like his Breeders' Cup-winning daughter, Perfect Soul was bred and raced by Charles Fipke and trained by Roger Attfield. He has been standing in Kentucky at Lane's End Farm (home of the great mare Zenyatta), but he is supposed to spend the 2012 breeding season at Norse Ridge Farm near King City, Ontario. Whether that will change after Perfect Shirl's incredible victory remains to be seen.
Her dam, Lady Shirl, was from a less than blue-blooded background, being by That's A NIce (by Hey Good Lookin) out of Canonization, by Native Heritage. An Illinois-bred, Lady Shirl far outperformed her pedigree. She set a new turf course record at Churchill Downs for 8-1/2 furlongs in 1:41 2/5, won the Grade 1 Flower Bowl, the G2 EP Taylor and the G3 Arlington Modesty.
Often, top-winning horses from modest backgrounds don't reproduce their quality. Not so for Lady Shirl. She is the dam of the good turf runner and popular young sire Shakespeare, who set a new turf course record over nine furlongs in the Belmont Breeders' Cup H. (G2) and won the 12-furlong Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Inv. S. (G1) and the Woodbine Mile S. (G1). Shakespeare won seven of eight starts and earned more than $1-million. His only loss was in the Breeders' Cup Turf. He stands at Lane's End Farm.
Lady Shirl is also the dam of G2 winner Lady Shakespeare and G2-placed stakes winner Fantastic Shirl, who in turn is the dam of Fantastic Song, who finished tenth behind Wrote in the 2011 Juvenile Turf.
Now that she is a Breeders' Cup champion, what will the future hold for Perfect Shirl? Attfield said she will be taken to Payson Park in Florida, where he has his winter headquarters.
“She needs a bit of a break,” Attfield said. “I haven’t got any definite schedule for her.”
Terry McNamee - As a community newspaper reporter for nearly 30 years, Terry McNamee won many regional, provincial and national awards for her writing.
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