Gee I’m Foxy was last year’s Manitoba Champion Two-Year-Old filly.

Now she’s trying to achieve Three-Year-Old filly championship status in Alberta.

At the very least she certainly made a great impression on that path Saturday at Century Mile in the $50,000 Chariot Chaser winning by what appeared to be the length of the stretch.

“She’s amazing,” marvelled trainer Cheryl Humbke after watching Gee I’m Foxy play with her opponents winning by an official seven and a half lengths.

“It’s almost like she’s a once-in-a-lifetime horse to train.

“It’s pretty cool.”

The scary thing is that Gee I’m Foxy could be even more explosive than her chilling triumph in the Chariot Chaser where she was sent away as the slight favourite.

“I think she will be better going a distance,” jockey Keihton Natera said with a straight face not surprised at all after the dominant victory going six furlongs.

“When I asked her she responded with strength.”

The game plan for the Chariot Chaser was to sit just off the pace and then come running.

Natera and Gee I’m Foxy did just that.

Sitting in third behind They Call Me Tom and No More Lies, last year’s Alberta Two-Year-Old Filly Champion with three straight stakes wins, Natera shook the reins midway around the turn and the rest was like watching a tiger eat.

“It was pretty fun to watch her do her thing,” said Humbke, who has only been training thoroughbreds for four years.

“She ran just the way we hoped and Natera, who is a very smart and talented jockey, rode her perfectly.

“He’s riding great and he’s such a nice guy. He works hard an comes around every morning asking if there is anything he can help with. It’s nice to see him have some success,” she said of Natera, who is in the thick of the well-bunched rider standings.

As for Gee I’m Foxy, Humbke said “She’s just getting better and better. She wants to be a race horse.”

Owned by Railside Stable, who wanted to try Alberta this year, the next local stake for Gee I’m Foxy, a pretty big three-year-old filly, isn’t until the July 19 mile-and-70-yard Sonoma Stake.

That would be more than a five-week gap between starts so Humbke is thinking of sending her back to Winnipeg’s Assiniboia Downs where there is the June 25 Chantilly stake - which could be a little soon and is also just six furlongs. Or she could just stay in Alberta and run in an allowance race.

The Chariot Chaser was Gee I’m Foxy’s third start of the year but her first against three-year-olds.

In her previous two starts this year she ran against open company: a solid second to Bling Dancer - “She’s a real nice horse,” said Humbke - and a third to Force to Rekn With.

Bling Dancer is a four-year-old; Force to Rekn With is five.

Last year, Gee I’m Foxy won three straight stakes races in Winnipeg for former trainer Jared Brown.

Purchased privately in Kentucky, she broke her maiden winning the Debutante Stakes by six lengths; dazzled again in the Graduation and then rallied smartly to easily win the Osiris Stake.

“She’s got a lot of attitude,” said Humbke, who, beginning in November, winter trained in Oklahoma. “She loves to train - just absolutely loves it.

“She galloped out strong and came back excellent.”

Galloped in the mornings by jockey Samantha Fletcher, Gee I’m Foxy also loves to bite.

“Like I said she’s got a lot of attitude. Absolutely. But that’s OK; those are the ones that can run,” she said of the daughter of Klimt, who won the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity and the Grade 2 Best Pal.

“If you leave her in her stall she gets mad. She wants to go first,” said Humbke, whose boyfriend Barry Hodgson, a former chuckwagon driver, used to train while Humbke, originally from Wetaskiwin, worked under him as a groom.

“Barry taught me everything I know,” said Humbke of the now outrider.

Gee I’m Foxy got the six panels in 1:10 2/5 which was faster than the boys went in the other stakes race on the program, the Western Canada Handicap, the first stake along the Canadian Derby path won by Wood Ceiling.

Moving three wide between horses, Wood Ceiling looked sharp winning by a length and a half ahead of last year’s Two-Year-Old Champion Puttingonthefoil, who had to go four wide.

Winning in 1:10.97, Wood Ceiling was no surprise. What was surprising is that Wood Ceiling is trained by Robertino Diodoro and still paid $14.70 to win. Diodoro horses running in Alberta never pay that much. Or, even close.

“We had high hopes for Wood Ceiling,” Diodoro said after the race. “He broke his maiden at first asking but then kind of flattened out. I don’t know if he was going through a growth spell or what it was but he definitely wasn’t as good then as he is now.

“Horses are like athletes. They develop at different stages.

“Young horses also keep you guessing. Guessing, thinking and dreaming.

“I also don’t think he cared for the track in Phoenix,” continued Diodoro despite Wood Ceiling running second in the Turf Paradise Derby in his previous start.

“He’s also had some bad trips,” Diodoro said of Wood Ceiling, who has now run at five different tracks even though he’s only had six races.

“He got carried out at Sunland, New Mexico losing about five lengths,” he said of a stake won by Take Charge Tom, who he also trains and who won the Mine That Bird Derby at Sunland.

Wood Ceiling also had a rough journey in another stake in Phoenix when he was five wide.

Diodoro said Wood Ceiling, who was bought by Norm Tremblay and Janet Kropp as a two-year-old for $110,000, came into the Western Canada in very good shape.

“Rasheed (jockey Hughes) really liked his last couple of works. Especially his last one which I believe was the best I’ve seen him work.”

There is no doubt about where Wood Ceiling is being pointed.

“The Canadian Derby,” Diodoro said of the $200,000 race which will be held at Century Mile on August 23 and is part of the $500,000 Western Canada Derby Series.

“That’s definitely the plan and the goal.”

The Derby’s a mile and a quarter but that doesn’t concern Diodoro at all. “His next few races will be a little further and a little further and a little further.”

“He’s also bred to run on,” Diodoro said of the son of Gun Runner, the 2017 American Horse of the Year, who already has two one-mile races under him. Stretching him out is not going to be an issue.”

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Author: The Turcottes: The Remarkable Story of a Horse Racing Dynasty.