By Steve Sherack
After airing by a little over a dozen lengths on the GI Cigar Mile H. undercard last November, 'TDN Rising Star' Elate (Medaglia d'Oro) makes her much-anticipated return to the races in Saturday's $100,000 Suncoast S. at Tampa Bay.
The 3-year-old Claiborne Farm and Adele B. Dilschneider homebred earned a very strong 88 Beyer Speed Figure for that debut effort going a one-turn mile at the Big A. She takes on eight rivals while making her two-turn bow in the Suncoast.
Elate has posted four workouts at Bill Mott's Payson base since mid-January, most recently covering four furlongs in :50.20 (9/16) Feb. 7.
“Any time you have one win like she did on debut and run that fast of a figure you start to have high hopes and big dreams,” Claiborne's Walker Hancock commented. “Bill [Mott] gave her some time off after that race in preparation for her 3-year-old campaign. She has been training well and has posted some solid works. The [GI Kentucky] Oaks is our goal, but right now we are taking her one race at a time.”
The well-related Elate is the first foal from the stakes winner Cheery (Distorted Humor). Her second dam Yell (A.P. Indy), a half-sister to Eastern Echo and Praise (dam of Congrats and Flatter), captured a pair of graded stakes victories and was also third in the 2003 GI Kentucky Oaks. Claiborne's Seth W. Hancock purchased Elate's third dam Wild Applause (Northern Dancer), a Paul Mellon homebred and half-sister to Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero, for $1.025 million at the 1992 Keeneland November Sale.
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