Hint has quickly become one to watch at Woodbine. The three-year-old filly, trained by Gail Cox for owner and breeder Sangreal Investments, LLC, has shown talent and consistency in her first three starts, and now she tackles seven rivals in Saturday’s $100,000 La Prevoyante Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile test for Ontario-sired fillies and mares, 3-year-olds and up.
“She is very nice,” said Cox. “It was a very long process to get her to the races, but she always had talent. She’s also very easy to deal with. I trained her half-brother Arashi, but he was more difficult to get along with.”
Hint comes into the La Prevoyante off a second-place finish in the Ashbridges Bay Stakes on November 21. In that 1 1/16-mile main track test, the dark bay took the lead and fought gamely to earn the runner-up prize.
“As we had thought when we looked at the race, there was no speed at all,” Cox said. “She went extremely slow through the opening fractions on the lead, but I think for an inexperienced horse, it is a hard way to run, to be on the lead the whole way and then be a target for someone. But I was very happy with the race and the ride.”
Hint debuted on October 11, finishing third in a six-furlong main track sprint at Woodbine. “She had worked very well from the gate, very fast. She was on Ernie Perri’s Clocker Report at Woodbine, so we expected her to show more speed that day. It was a conservative start to the race, where she broke okay, but was a little green, trying to figure things out. She made a run at the end and I thought she would really improve off that race.”
On November 1, Hint broke her maiden over 6 ½ furlongs on the main track, rallying from sixth early to win by 1 ¼ lengths. “We thought she would improve off that race and would also move up with the added distance,” Cox said. “We were happy that she came out of her first race well and was ready for this one. I really liked how she did it. She sat off horses and got a ton of experience that day. And she won the right way – you do like to see them come off the pace and make a run.”
The daughter of Silent Name (JPN) out of Don’t Tell Lou breezed four furlongs in :50.00 over the main track on December 6. “She is coming into the race doing very well. She is fairly easy on herself. In the mornings and on race day, she just has a great mind – she does all the important things well. She is good in the gate, good in the paddock and she’s nice to train.”
Shad Belle is the exercise rider and groom.
Other entries include Ashbridges Bay Stakes winner Ella It Is, graded stakes-placed Hurricane Clair, three-time winner Madam Gwen, 2022 Thunder Bay stakes winner My Girl Sky, stakes-placed Secret Load, Algoma Stakes winner Speedy Freeze, and multiple stakes winner War Painter.
La Prevoyante, bred in Canada by Jean-Louis Levesque, was a champion in Canada and the United States. Undefeated in 12 starts as a juvenile in 1972, she won the Eclipse Award for Champion 2-Year-Old Filly and the Sovereign Award the same year, and was voted Canadian Horse of the Year. She retired with a record of 25-5-3 from 39 starts and earnings of $572,417, later earning induction into the Canadian Hall of Fame in 1976 and the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in 1995.
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