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Preakness contender Stradivari not short on talent
- Updated: May 18, 2016
1:14 PM ET
Stradivari will be giving up both significant experience and months of age to his competitors when he enters the Preakness Stakes as a new shooter, but the colt, who has won his past two starts by a combined 25-3/4 lengths, sure doesn’t behave like it.
“I hope his maturity will enable him to be able to handle it and run beyond his experience,” said Tanya Gunther, who, with father John Gunther, bred the colt and co-owns him with Coolmore. “If he didn’t have as good of a mind, we might be taking a different track.”
Although Stradivari is a new shooter, the Gunthers are no strangers to this level of competition. John Gunther, an investment banker and stock-brokerage executive, has been involved in Thoroughbred breeding and ownership for more than 25 years and is the proprietor of 350-acre Glennwood Farm in Versailles, Ky. His daughter Tanya, a former investment banker in London, serves as the farm’s general manager and takes a leading role in planning matings for the select broodmare band of 20-30.
Stradivari hopes to end Nyquist’s Triple Crown bid with a victory in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes. Coady Photography
They bred, raised, and sold multiple Grade 1 winner Stay Thirsty, second in the 2011 Belmont Stakes; multiple Grade 1 winner First Samurai, third in the 2005 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile; Florida Derby winner Materiality, a creditable sixth in last year’s Kentucky Derby in just his fourth career start; and multiple graded stakes winner My Miss Sophia, second in the 2014 Kentucky Oaks. They also co-bred champion Stevie Wonderboy, the winner of the 2005 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
Another Gunther homebred was Bending Strings, a daughter of Grade 2 winner American Chance and multiple stakes winner Straight South, both of whom John Gunther campaigned. In four seasons of racing, the speedy Bending Strings earned $870,612 while winning four graded stakes at distances of six furlongs to a mile — the Grade 2 Nassau County Breeders’ Cup, Grade 3 Safely Kept Breeders’ Cup, Grade 2 First Flight Handicap, and Grade 2 Chilukki Stakes. She placed in nine other stakes at up to 1-1/8 miles, including runner-up finishes in the Test Stakes, La Brea Stakes, and Go For Wand Handicap and third-place efforts in the Ogden Phipps Handicap and Humana …
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