Envoutante look to get back on track in $135K Summer Colony
At 0h01, on August 17, 2022 • By SARATOGA
Graded-stakes winners Envoutante and Bonny South have competed against the best in their division over the past couple of years. On Friday, both 5-year-old mares will enjoy class relief as they co-headline a field of seven in the $135,000 Summer Colony at Saratoga Race Course.
The nine-furlong test restricted to older fillies and mares yet to win a graded stakes this year will see Walking L Thoroughbreds and Three Chimneys Farm’s Envoutante and Juddmonte’s homebred Bonny South face each other for the sixth time in their careers, dating back to the Grade 1 Ashland in July 2020 at Keeneland where the two mares ran a respective third and fourth. Envoutante has come out on the winning end against Bonny South in the past two runnings of the Grade 2 Falls City at Churchill Downs, winning by six lengths on both occasions.
Envoutante, trained by Kenny McPeek, captured her first graded stakes victory in the Grade 3 Remington Park Oaks in September 2020 following a fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Alabama behind stablemate Swiss Skydiver. The Uncle Mo dark bay comes into the Summer Colony off a five-month respite, having finished a distant fourth in the Grade 1 Beholder Mile on March 5 at Santa Anita in her most recent outing.
“The trip itself was hard on her. She came out of it with some bone bruising and upon the recommendation of Dr. [Larry] Bramlage [of Rood and Riddle Equine], we turned her out,” said Scott Leeds of Walking L Thoroughbreds. “We actually bred her to Quality Road, but she did not get pregnant. So, when the 60 days were up, Dr. Bramlage looked at her again, and he thought she looked good to go back to the track. She’s been training up there at Saratoga since late June and she’s been just lights out.”
Envoutante finished fifth in last year’s Grade 1 Spinster, where Bonny South was third. Leeds said the Summer Colony is a good prep for a return engagement in the nine-furlong test on October 9 at Keeneland.
Envoutante boasts an overall record of 17-6-2-4 with earnings $961,658, but a victory in the Summer Colony would make her the newest member of racing’s million-dollar club.
