| FEATURE RACE COMMENT |
YEAR: 2004
 |
| Thanksgiving holds out Jazz Legend |
When Tommy Behrns heard the bang of the hammer after he had put in a bid for $31,000 on Lot 71 yearling at the Inter-Dominion Sale last year, he said to himself "I'm crazy". A seller of horses, one who had never raced a 2-year-old trotter before, and with not an owner for the colt in sight, Behrns knew he was playing a dangerous game. "But I truly liked the horse. I had picked him on conformation, and just got carried away at the time," he said.
His sire was the fast Speedy Crown horse King Conch and his mother was the superbly-bred but elderly Diedre Hanover, who died last week, and was offered by trotting enthusiasts Gary Allen and Trevor Casey. Diedre Hanover had also left good winners Sunny Florida, Diedre's Girl, Arnover and Roysimon, and to come was this season's Great Northern Trotting Derby winner, Hurricane Flyer.
With the damage done, Behrns went to the Dellaca brothers, Richard and John, Brendon Richards and Paul Young, and sold them each a fifth. "It wasn't easy putting it all together - I'd be telling a lie if I said otherwise," he said. But Thanksgiving soon took the weight off his sholders. "He just trotted from from day one. He didn't take any making," he said.
Still big and overgrown, Thanksgiving won his first two starts, then made an early break and ran last behind Damian Carlos at Addington last month. Driven by Jim Curtin, Thanksgiving swept up out wide near the 600m in the $35,000 NRM Sires' Stakes Championship and soon had Hoops covered. Jazz Legend, by Holdonmyheart, made a spirited run in the straight, and failed by only a head to reverse the result.
Credit: Mike Grainger writing in HRWeekly