Warming Too Hot to Handle in Dance Smartly
Edited Press Release Woodbine
Maryland shipper Warming continued a scorching campaign across North America by capturing the Dance Smartly Stakes (G2T) Oct. 3 at Woodbine.
The $141,745 race, named for Canada’s first Breeders’ Cup winner, drew a field of seven fillies and mares, 3-year-olds and upward.
Surprisingly, it was Proctor Street and Eponine , the 1-2 off-the-pace finishers in the Canadian Stakes (G2T), who showed the way up front early. Proctor Street, who won that event Aug. 15 at Woodbine by a neck over Eponine, led the latter by a length through an opening quarter-mile in :25.05, in the 1 1/16-mile turf route on an E.P. Taylor turf course listed as good.
Proctor Street, under Pietro Moran, continued to lead through a half-mile in :50.31 and carried that speed to the top of the lane in a 6-furlong split of 1:14.21. The Graham Motion-trained Warming, fresh off a last-to-first win in the Yellow Ribbon Stakes (G2T) Aug. 8 at Del Mar, was enjoying an ideal ground-saving trip in fifth and began to rally up the fence.
Inside the quarter pole, Fraser Aebly steadily angled the white-blazed chestnut off the rail, with the tandem finding a seam in the four path and surging by Proctor Street to score by 1 3/4 lengths over a late, rail-rallying Power of Destiny . The final running time was 1:43.78.
Riding the 4-year-old daughter of Global Campaign🔥 for the first time, Aebly was asked postrace if he was worried about a lack of early pace in the race.
“The way she was traveling for me down the backside, I wasn’t worried at all,” said Aebly, who helped improve Warming’s record to a perfect 4-for-4 at 1 1/16 miles on turf. “She definitely has a very good turn of foot.
“As soon as I asked her at the head of the lane, she kind of found a seam. She kicked very hard for me, it was very nice to see,” Aebly added.
Appearing at her sixth different racetrack in 2026, Warming added her second straight grade 2 win, following the Yellow Ribbon triumph. Two starts prior, the Kentucky-bred won the Gallorette Stakes (G3T) at Laurel Park. The Dance Smartly victory improved Warming’s record to 3-1-2 from six starts this year.
“She shipped up so well,” said Ian Wilson, Motion’s assistant trainer. “She’s gone all over. This is just another day, another business day for her.”
Bred in Kentucky by M. Auerbach and owned by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Warming improves to 6-1-3 from 14 career starts, while earning automatic entry into the 2027 Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf Invitational Stakes (G2T), slated for January at Gulfstream Park.
Warming went off at 2-1 and returned $6.70 for the win.