Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint

Trainer Mark Casse kept hearing the voice of a legend rolling through his mind.

As he evaluated his charge, Shamrock Rose, in the days following her first graded stakes win and watched her behave like a horse with the world at her feet, he recalled a vital lesson imparted to him from one of the great teachers of the game.

“I keep harping on this, but I remember 35 year ago, with [Hall of Famer] Allen Jerkens, and he kept telling me, ‘I don't understand trainers. They want to give them a rest when they're running good. Rest them when they're running bad,’ ” the Canadian Hall of Fame trainer said. “And that kept going through my mind, because ... this filly right now thinks she can beat anybody.”

Shamrock Rose backed up her arrogant attitude by throwing down the goods in the $1 million Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, when she put in a furious rally under Irad Ortiz Jr. to edge Chalon by a head at the finish line in the seven-eighths of a mile test at Churchill Downs.—Alicia Wincze Hughes