When Beautiful Thief (Dialed In) won the 12th race at Saratoga Saturday, a maiden special weight on the turf for fillies three and up, she was doing more than visiting the winner's circle for the first time. Her victory pushed trainer George Weaver over the threshold of 1,000 career wins in North America.
“It feels good. It took a lot of years to get here, we've been working hard for many, many years,” said Weaver. “You don't really think about these things until they happen. There was a little gap, it took us a couple weeks, we had some live horses run and just didn't get there. I knew it was going to come and was hoping it would happen here at such a special place.”
Weaver went out on his own in 2002–and got his first win that same year–after serving under D. Wayne Lukas, Todd Pletcher, and John Hennig. MGISW Vekoma was one of his trainees, as was GISW Lighthouse Bay and Dubai G1SW Saratoga County. Last year, he trained Crimson Advocate (Nyquist) to a win in the G2 Queen Mary at Royal Ascot, becoming only the third American conditioner to win a race there.
“Technically, we won the race at Ascot and one in Dubai, which didn't count, so I've already passed 1,000 wins,” mused Weaver. “When they hold the sign up and announce it, and you look back on all the years we've worked so hard, and so many nice horses and owners, it makes you look back [fondly].”
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