By Andrea Branchini
Lady Clementine (GB) is a supremely fitting name for the Churchill (Ire) 3-year-old filly who won so well at Del Mar last Saturday.
Clementine Ogilvy Spencer Churchill, nee Hozier (1885-1977), was the wife of the famous British politician and WW2 leader for 56 intense and fateful years. “Fortitude” is an expression that seems to abound in a recent novelized account of the life of Lady Clementine. The union was a loving and successful one by all accounts, even if the husband had quite a reputation for being mercurial and unpredictable, as epitomized in the famous story of the back-and-forth with Lady Nancy Astor, where the statement, “If you were my husband, I'd poison your tea” was followed by the quick-witted repartee “Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it!”
The filly in question “wide again around the far turn, bid three wide at the top of the lane and powered home along the outside”, says the racing report–so she may have some of her namesake's fortitude.
11th-Del Mar, $83,500, Msw, 7-30, 3yo/up, f/m, 1mT, 1:35.85, fm, 1 1/4 lengths.
LADY CLEMENTINE (GB) (f, 3, Churchill {Ire}–Wind Fire {MSW & MGSP-Eng, $201,294}, by Distorted Humor) Lifetime Record: 5-1-2-2, $55,141. Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.
O-Marc Detampel & Fergus Galvin; B-The Wind Fire Partnership (GB); T-George Papaprodromou.
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