Time Off for Illuminant
By: Steve Sherack
Illuminant (Quality Road), last seen capturing Santa Anita’s GI Gamely S. May 30, is currently getting a freshening at Bluewater Farm in Lexington, Kentucky.
“[Trainer] Michael McCarthy wasn’t content with how she was traveling in the wake of the Gamely, so we backed off, sent her to Dr. Larry Bramlage [at Rood & Riddle] for a thorough check-up and, fortunately, he couldn’t find anything major, just a few minor issues that simply required some time for her to get through,” owner Aron Wellman of Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners revealed. “Dr. Bramlage believes Illuminant can return to her Grade I form once this downtime is completed, sometime around the beginning of November, so we are highly encouraged by what may be to come.”
The $32,000 KEESEP yearling turned $180,000 OBS March juvenile will be entered in the Fasig-Tipton November Sale for the partnership group to be in a position to keep all options on the table, Wellman reports.
“We’ll feel our way through the next few months while preparing her as though she will race again next season, while weighing the option of testing the market at Fasig in November,” Wellman concluded. “Michael [McCarthy] and I paid a visit to Illuminant at Bluewater this past week while we were in town for the [Keeneland September] yearling sale and we were both really pleased with her condition and attitude.”
The 4-year-old daughter of multiple stakes winner Sparkling Number (Polish Numbers) was also third behind Tepin (Bernstein) in Keeneland’s GI Coolmore Jenny Wiley S. Apr. 16.