Stevens Lands Juvenile Fillies Turf Mount

You just can't keep Gary Stevens down. It seems like just yesterday Stevens looked to have little or no shot to make the Breeders' Cup following knee reconstruction surgery.

But if there is one thing we have learned about Stevens, it is to never count him out when it comes to riding horses. Stevens obviously needs to be riding horses as much as he needs blood flowing through his veins.

So when a somewhat unusual mount became available in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (gr. IT), Stevens naturally jumped at the chance. He was offered the mount on a French import named Sivoliere by Chad Brown, who had taken over the filly's training following her purchase by Martin Schwartz.

Brown, who has three other fillies in the Juvenile Fillies Turf, said the race was not being considered for Sivoliere until the Irish-bred daughter of Sea the Stars started to show some signs of life in her training. After all, she had won three of her five starts in France, and in her most recent effort she finished a strong third in the Longines Prix du Calvados (Fr-III) at Deauville for trainer Jean-Claude Rouget.

"Chad said she hadn't been real impressive in the mornings, but he spoke to Rouget and he said she had never shown anything in the mornings; that's just her," Stevens said.

Brown added, "Sivoliere got in a little late and has taken time to adjust here, but lately she's put a couple of works together that were OK, I figured if she continued to make progress and looked like she was rounding back in form I would have time to work her two more times and we could try to get her into the race as well."

Sivoliere will be stretching out to one mile after running all her races at five, six, and seven furlongs.