By Jessica Martini
When Larry Demeritte purchased a filly by Discreet Cat for $1,000 at last year's Fasig-Tipton October Sale, the trainer saw a yearling who could outrun her purchase price and the chestnut is proving him right. Now named Lady Glamour and running in the name of Demeritte's wife Inga, the 2-year-old was a debut winner in the maiden claiming ranks at Churchill Downs before jumping up to stakes company with a strong third-place finish in Saturday's Debutante S. in Louisville. Demeritte will look to cash in on his investment when Lady Glamour (hip 598) goes through the ring as part of the Taylor Made Sales Agency consignment at Monday's Fasig-Tipton July Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale in Lexington.
“She was a good-looking filly, well balanced and she had all the qualities I look for when I'm buying racehorses,” Demeritte said of his initial impressions of Lady Glamour. “She just looked like the kind of filly who would take to the way I train. I had success training 2-year-olds for a long time. When I trained in the Bahamas, I trained the 2-year-old champion for three years in a row. And she looked like one who could take my training.”
Of the filly's bargain basement final price tag, Demeritte explained with a chuckle, “I always say, 'I don't buy cheap horses, I buy a good horse cheap.'”
Demeritte, who has 10 horses at his Thoroughbred Training Center base in Lexington, had Lady Glamour ready to run at the Keeneland meeting in April, but opted to wait for a race at Churchill Downs the following month.
“This filly really showed a lot early and just looked like she wanted to stretch out,” he said. “She was ready to run at Keeneland, but I didn't want to run her 4 1/2 [furlongs] at Keeneland. That's different from running 4 1/2 at Churchill. Churchill has a little more stretch run. Keeneland has a chute that you come out and turn. So I figured I'd better wait and run her at Churchill.”
Lady Glamour made her debut for a $40,000 tag going 4 1/2 furlongs as a 26-1 longshot at Churchill May 9 and overcame a wide trip to graduate by a length.
“I thought she could win a maiden special, but I wanted to make it easy for her and run her for a tag the first time out,” Demeritte said. “But I had enough confidence in this filly that she could run with any kind.”
Lady Glamour, dismissed at 33-1 behind heavily fancied 'TDN Rising Star' Magic Dance (More Than Ready) in Saturday's six-furlong Debutante, was caught five wide on the turn and chased the top two home (video).
“We had a tough draw coming out of the nine hole [in the Debutante], so it pushed her out further than we would like to be,” Demeritte said. “I know [Steve] Asmussen has a really, really nice filly [in Magic Dance]. Looking at his filly, you are looking at a filly who could maybe run in the Oaks, if all stays well with her. She is something special, I think. The other filly [runner-up Cholula Lips], I thought we could have caught her if we didn't have the trip that we had. I told James [Graham] in the paddock, 'If you ride her with the confidence I have in her, we'll get there.'”
Demeritte followed the footsteps of his father into the racing business and, after getting his start in his native Bahamas, has been based in Kentucky since 1980.
“My dad was a horse trainer,” he said. “And from an early age, I knew I wanted to be a horse trainer, too.”
Demeritte, who trained 2010 GIII Stars and Stripes Turf S. winner Memorial Maniac (Lear Fan), admitted it was a tough decision to sell the promising filly.
“I would say, yes,” he confirmed when asked if it was a difficult decision to sell. “But we're testing the waters and we'll see what happens. I think she could be a special filly. It's a business, you know.”
Beyond the pure economics of the business, there are larger forces at work in Demeritte's decision to offer Lady Glamour at Monday's July sale.
“I have multiple myeloma and a disease called amyloidosis–one is a bone cancer and the other, the body makes an abnormal protein,” Demeritte said. “I've been doing chemo now for 2 1/2 years and I had a bone marrow transplant a year and a half ago. And that helps to make the hard decision to sell the filly if we could get a decent price, because there is a lot of stuff out there that needs to be taken care of. Maybe this filly is a blessing for me.”
Still, Demeritte doesn't sound like someone you should underestimate.
“I've come a long way,” he said. “When I was first diagnosed, they told me six months.”
Like her trainer, Lady Glamour has already outrun the odds and Demeritte thinks the filly will be a standout at the July sale.
“She is a really beautiful filly,” he said. “She's a big filly. She has a lot more improvement to make and she loves what she's doing, she doesn't get rattled at all. She looks like she's going to be a two-turn filly and she trains that way, too.”
The Fasig-Tipton July Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale gets underway Monday at 4 p.m. at the company's Newtown Paddocks in Lexington. Fasig-Tipton hosts its July Selected Yearlings Sale Tuesday with bidding commencing at 10 a.m.
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