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Careless Jewel could be Josie Carroll’s alter ego, the flip side of her character, the more flamboyant and headstrong side, but not so much a Hyde to her Jekyll as a patronus to her Harry Potter because together they’ve been, well, very nearly unbeatable.
And they’ll be a formidable team in the $2 million Ladies’ Classic, the featured event on the first day of the two-day, $25.5 million Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships at Santa Anita. A flashy gray filly who willfully shoots to the lead and dares anybody to run with her, Careless Jewel is the 2-1 favorite in today’s morning line."She’s got a lot of natural speed," Carroll said about the compact and explosive package she’ll saddle in the Ladies’ Classic, "and so she’ll be on the lead or close to the lead. ... This is the Breeders’ Cup, and they’ll be running at us. This is a really good field."A native of Toronto, Carroll graduated with honors from Humber College with a degree in equine studies. After a two-week internship at Woodbine, she decided that’s where her future would be, at the racetrack. As she put it, she started at the bottom and worked her way up, as an assistant to trainers John Tammaro and then Roger Attfield before striking out on her own in 1994. Since then, she consistently has been one of Canada’s leading trainers while wintering at Fair Grounds in New Orleans.Her gender, she said, was neither an obstacle nor an advantage. At the racetrack, getting into the winner’s circle is all that matters, and she has always had a talent for that. In 2006, she won the $1 million Queen’s Plate with Edenwold, who was Canada’s champion juvenile the previous year. Careless Jewel will be her first starter in the Breeders’ Cup.And while Carroll, who’s 51, tends to be modest and soft spoken, Careless Jewel is audacious. She’ll be the closest thing to a wild horse on the track today at Santa Anita. She sometimes runs with her head cocked to the outside, as though disdaining jockey Robert Landry’s efforts to restrain her speed and her natural inclination to just run as fast and as hard as she can.But, amazingly enough, no matter how fast she runs, Careless Jewel just keeps running. Even in the Cotillion Stakes, after bursting through an opening half-mile in 45.72 seconds, a rapid pace for a race at 1 1/16 miles, she drew away from her competition in the stretch to win by more than three lengths. If not for the misfortune of being born the same year as Rachel Alexandra, Careless Jewel would be in line for championship honors. After she won the Delaware Oaks by more than seven lengths, she went to Saratoga and romped in the prestigious Alabama Stakes, winning by 11."I think it’s very special when a horse can make the pace and kick on," Carroll said after the Alabama.But can Careless Jewel do the same today, against such horses as Music Note, Cocoa Beach, Rainbow View, Proviso and Life Is Sweet, who are all major stakes winners? Music Note has early speed, and she’ll probably be stalking the wild horse on the lead.Music Note’s rider, Rajiv Maragh, will have a difficult decision to make in the opening half-mile today. If he lets Careless Jewel go, he’ll never see her again. But if Maragh presses too closely, he could compromise his own chances, setting the race up for a late-closer, such as Cocoa Beach or Rainbow View.This year has celebrated the distaff side of the sport more than any in recent history, with Rachel Alexandra the leading candidate for Horse of the Year and unbeaten Zenyatta the favorite for the Classic. And it would be richly appropriate for Carroll and her alter ego to find their way into the winner’s circle today, the one to brandish her superiority and the other to celebrate the culmination of many years of hard work.Gary West, 817-390-7760
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