Evening Attire (horse)
Evening Attire | |
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Sire | The Evening Attire Stakes at Aqueduct |
Last updated on December 29, 2008 |
Evening Attire (February 14, 1998 – January 20, 2019) was an American
History
Bred by Joseph M. Grant and Hall of Famer Thomas J. Kelly, and owned by Kelly along with his longtime clients Joe and Mary Grant, Evening Attire was first trained by Tommy's son Tim Kelly. When Tim retired, the horse was taken over by another of Tommy's sons, Pat Kelly. The first time Tommy Kelly watched him breeze, he said, "That's a special horse. He'll be a stakes winner."
Evening Attire was the son of 1991
A dappled gray, Evening Attire was gelded before the start of his three-year-old racing season.[2] As a gelding, Evening Attire raced until the age of ten. He raced well off the pace, often closing dramatically.
Racing career
Evening Attire made his first start on July 16, 2000 in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park, finishing second. He broke his maiden in his next start at Saratoga on August 6. He then stepped up in class to enter the Grade I
In 2002, he earned his most important win in the
In 2004, the then six-year-old gelding made 11 starts with one win in the Saratoga Breeders' Cup Handicap and six runner-up placings. In 2005, he won the Stuyvesant Handicap, but he was winless in five starts.[1]
On March 3, 2007, at odds of 8–1 and at the age of 9, he took the 52nd running of
Evening Attire finished third in the 2007 Stuyvesant Handicap after hesitating at the start, a trait his trainer said the 10-year-old gelding developed in 2007. Evening Attire was entered in the 2007 Queens County Handicap at Aqueduct (a race he won in 2001) and took it by a head under veteran jockey Edgar Prado. He became the oldest horse ever to win the Queens County, which has been run since 1902. After the race (in which he defeated Hunting, who had won the 2007 Stuyvesant), Prado said: "He knows his way around the track. When he's right, he's pretty tough."
Though his trainer, Patrick Kelly, had thought to take Evening Attire out of stakes competition, NYRA stakes coordinator Andrew Byrnes convinced him to enter the horse in the June 6, 2008,
On July 19, 2008, in his first win outside the state of New York, Evening Attire won the
Highlights
Although he was bred in Kentucky, Evening Attire seldom raced outside New York. He won at least one graded stakes race win over all three New York Racing Association dirt tracks. At Aqueduct, he was a seven-time stakes winner.
- 2001: 1st Discovery Handicap(GIII)
- 2002: 1st Massachusetts Handicap(GII)
- 2003: 2nd in Queens County Handicap (GIII), Whitney Handicap(GI)
- 2004: 1st Saratoga Breeders' Cup Handicap (beating Funny Cide and Bowman's Band with a 90 Equibase Speed Figure) (GII), 2nd Knickerbocker Handicap (GII), Excelsior Breeders' Cup Handicap (GIII), Queens County Handicap (GIII), Ben Ali Stakes (GIII), Aqueduct Handicap (GIII), and John B. Campbell Handicap.
- 2005: 1st Stuyvesant Handicap (GIII)
- 2006: 2nd Aqueduct Handicap(GIII), 3rd Stymie Handicap.
- 2007: 1st The StymieHandicap, 3rd the Stuyvesant Handicap.
- 2008: 1st in the Brooklyn Handicap.
Quoted from
."Retirement
On September 28, 2008, his owners and trainer announced that Evening Attire would retire due to a suspensory injury.
His trainer, Tommy Kelly, said, "He was one of a kind. He had to be castrated early on because he couldn’t break from the gate. Still to this day, he didn’t break like any other racehorse. But at the final end when it counted, from the quarter pole to the wire, he always put in his run. I’ve never seen him back down once. He might have finished second, third, fourth, or fifth, but he was already running at the end, where the best part of a racehorse manifests itself. We’re all going to miss him."
On October 25, 2008, Evening Attire was brought to Belmont Park one last time. He was walked around the paddock, and a celebration was held in the Belmont Park winner's circle.
His next stop was Akindale Farm in Pawling, New York. Akindale is a farm dedicated to the rescue, rehab, and retraining of retired thoroughbred racehorses. Evening Attire died on January 21, 2019.[3]
Honors
Aqueduct Race Track renamed its
References
- ^ a b c d "Evening Attire – Equibase Profile". Equibase. Retrieved 13 December 2017.
- ^ "Evening Attire Dresses Up Aqueduct". Blood-Horse. 2001-12-01. Retrieved 2019-01-22.
- ^ "Remembering Evening Attire". thisishorseracing.com. 2019-01-24. Retrieved 2019-02-20.