Perseverance Pays Off for Wedding Toast Connections

Wedding Toast enters the Distaff as the morning-line favorite in her career finale. (Photos by Eclipse Sportswire)
By Tom Pedulla, America’s Best Racing
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Officials at Godolphin Racing had to be tempted to retire Wedding Toast when she sustained a knee injury as a 4-year-old early last year. Although the daughter of Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense had made only six starts, she was a graded-stakes winner and her bloodlines alone made her a desirable broodmare.
When the knee injury did not require surgery, they decided to persevere. And they were richly rewarded.
Wedding Toast carries an impressive three-race winning streak into today’s $2-million Breeders’ Cup Distaff and is listed as a 4-1 favorite to take the centerpiece of the first day of international competition at Keeneland Race Course.
“She couldn’t be doing any better,” said trainer Kiaran McLaughlin.
Even the luck of the draw went her way. She and jockey Jose Lezcano will break from post seven while Sheer Drama, who appears to be her primary foe, drew outside in post 14.
“If someone else goes, we can lay second or third,” McLaughlin said. “But she will be forwardly placed.”
Wedding Toast sat comfortably in a stalking position before Lezcano asked her for run in the Grade 2 Ruffian on May 9. She responded with a four-length score. Even more impressively, she followed that by wiring her fields in the in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps on June 6, where she ruled by five lengths, and in the Beldame Invitational, where she bested her competition by 2 3/4 lengths. All three races were held at Belmont Park in New York.
WEDDING TOAST IN THE OGDEN PHIPPS WINNER'S CIRCLE
 
Wedding Toast responded well to an increase in distance. She returned from her knee injury to take a seven-furlong stakes race at Gulfstream Park in Florida on Jan. 7. After a third-place finish in the one-mile Rampart (G3) and fourth in the seven-furlong Madison (G1), McLaughlin decided her sprinting days needed to be over.
“That’s not what she wants to do,” he said. “He was always having to push on her to keep her up there with the pace. Once we stretched her out, she’s gone to the lead pretty nicely and won her last three very impressively.”
The fortunes of Wedding Toast may depend on the decisions veteran rider Joe Bravo makes aboard Sheer Drama. Trainer David Fawkes learned in the 2010 Sprint that an undesirable post does not necessarily spell doom. Although Big Drama was assigned the rail, he still got the job done.
Bravo is likely to have Sheer Drama on the engine early in an effort to overcome their post and keep Wedding Toast from a comfortable lead. “She’s got good tactical speed and I’ve got a good jockey,” said Fawkes. “I think we’ll be fine. She’s quick to get out of the gate and she won’t have to hang in there too long.”
Wedding Toast, who will be retired after the Breeders’ Cup, is 4 for 6 this season with a third-place finish for $988,756 in purse money. Sheer Drama owns three wins and has been second four times to bank $1,114,720 this year.
Whatever the outcome, the connections of Wedding Toast will be forever grateful that they gave her one more season.