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Team Valor, Barber acquire Motovato
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| Motovato's last win came in the Kenny Noe Jr.
(Jim Lisa Photos) |
Team Valor International and Gary Barber have purchased Grade 3 winner
MOTOVATO (Proud Citizen) from the Estate of Edmund Gann. The five-year-old bay
will remain in the care of trainer Marty Wolfson, who will point the
Kentucky-bred for the March 13 Gulfstream Park H. (G2).
A multiple stakes winner last season, Motovato earned his first graded score
when taking the seven-furlong Kenny Noe Jr. H. (G3) by a neck. That win was
sandwiched between a second in the October 17 Spend a Buck H. (G3) and a close
third in the Gulfstream Park Sprint Championship (G2) in his most recent start
on February 13.
"He should have won his last start," Wolfson said. "He was mistakenly
'tailed' in the gate last time. When the gates opened, he was moving backward
and went up in the air. He ran unbelievable to get up for third beaten a length
behind Munnings (Speightstown). He was eating them alive in the final
sixteenth."
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The Gulfstream Park H., which offers $300,000 in prize money, has been
reduced from a two-turn to a one-turn event going a mile.
"He's probably best over seven-eighths," Wolfson surmised. "But he can act
over a mile. He is doing very well at this moment."
"We were going to buy him at that time, but he injured a leg and the deal
died," said Barry Irwin, CEO of Team Valor International. "We have always liked
him. Marty understands him and seems to be able to exact tremendous performances
out of him. Marty trains other runners for Team Valor, so this became an
inevitable acquisition once we learned that the Estate of Edmund Gann planned to
sell the horses."
Motovato's other stakes wins came in the Sumter S. and Primal S. He has so
far compiled a 14-5-2-3 record having earned $234,179.
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