CON LIMA Runs Away with 2021 Texas Horse of the Year Honors
Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Joseph Graffeo, Erik Nikolaus Del Toro, and Troy Johnson’s Con Lima has been named the 2021 Texas Horse of the Year by the Texas Thoroughbred Association. Con Lima has also been named Champion Three-Year-Old Texas-Bred Filly for 2021 following a remarkable season.
Con Lima, a now four-year-old filly by Commissioner out of the Consolidator mare Second Street City, bred in Texas by Lisa Kuhlmann, was a tour de force in 2021. She capped her impressive three-year-old campaign with a front-running score in the $700,000 Saratoga Oaks Invitational Stakes (Grade 3) on the turf at Saratoga in August, defeating a field of international sophomore fillies.
Her three-year-old season began in early January with a wire-to-wire victory in the listed Ginger Brew Stakes at Gulfstream Park; that was just the beginning of an impressive season for the Texas-bred filly. She followed that with four victories in graded stakes races, including the Herecomesthebride Stakes (Grade 3), the Wonder Again Stakes (Grade 3), and the aforementioned Saratoga Oaks Invitational Stakes (Grade 3). Con Lima was also second in the Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes (Grade 1) and the Sweetest Chant Stakes (Grade 3). She was off the board just once in eight starts in 2021, amassing a record of 8-5-2-0 with $795,015 in earnings.
Con Lima’s dam, Second Street City, has been named the 2021 Texas Broodmare of the Year. And her breeder, Lisa Kuhlmann, is the Texas Thoroughbred Association’s 2021 Breeder of the Year.