Runner-up in her first race in graded company in her previous start – the Grade 3 Royal North Stakes at Woodbine on August 2nd – Mother Russia, a four-year-old daughter of New York sire Mayakovsky, almost repeated the result on Saturday in Woodbine’s $155,363 Grade 3 Seaway Stakes, but fell short by a head and had to settle for a show finish.
Campaigned by Obviously NY Stable and trained by Linda Rice, Mother Russia was teamed up with Mike Luzzi – her jockey in the True North – for the seven-furlong Seaway stakes, and the pair went to the post as second wagering choice at 2.35-to-1. Mother Russia Broke on top from post four, but as she traveled mid-track down the seven-furlong chute and onto the main oval, favorite Tribal Belle, accompanied by Hooh Why, cruised up on the inside to take the lead. Tribal Belle and Hooh Why vied through a quarter in 22.86 and a half in 44.81, with Tribal Belle yielding to Hooh Why on the turn. Mother Russia, meanwhile, stalked that pair in third and eventual runner-up Indian Apple Is raced last in the field of five, four lengths off the pace. Although there was no catching Hooh Why once she shook clear in the stretch, it looked like Mother Russia had locked up second. Indian Apple Is, however, had swung six wide turning for home and was charging down the middle of the track. She rapidly closed ground from last and managed to catch – and poke a head in front of – Mother Russia. After seven furlongs over the synthetic Polytrack surface (and six in a speedy 1:09.72), Hooh Why stopped the clock at 1:23.51 with a 1 ¾-length margin of victory. With the Grade 3 show finish, six-time stakes-winner Mother Russia’s career record now stands at 7-2-3 from 14 starts with purse earnings of $543,903. The race was her third start of 2010.
Bred by Philip Birsh, Mother Russia was foaled at Tim Little and Anne Morgan’s Mill Creek Farm, home of her sire Mayakovsky (Matty G), a Grade 3 Gotham winner and Grade 1 Hopeful runner-up who retired to stud duty in New York in 2004. Linda Rice purchased Mother Russia as a weanling for Obviously NY Stable at the New York Breeders’ Sales Company’s 2006 October sale for $21,000. She is one of two six-figure-earning New York-bred offspring from winner Still Secret by Hennessy, who was purchased by Birsh for $17,000 at Keeneland’s 2005 January sale. Mother Russia’s gelded New York-bred half-brother Iron Curtain (by Boundary) has made all but two of his career starts on turf and earned $113,549.
