This year’s Sovereign Awards Ceremony announcing the Champions of 2017 has created a nervous excitement in the barn of Trainer Catherine Day Phillips.
Catherine, a finalist in the Outstanding Trainer category for 2017, is also the trainer of Champion two-year-old filly finalist Dixie Moon and Champion three-year-old Male finalist Mr. Havercamp, both bred and owned by Sean and Dorothy Fitzhenry.
Longtime commercial breeders and owners the Fitzhenrys enjoyed an exceptional year in 2017 with their horses winning multiple stakes and competing at Saratoga Racecourse (Guy Caballero) and in the Breeders’ Cup Championships (Dixie Moon).
Catherine Day Phillips’s trainees earned her a training career high 24 wins, 19 seconds and 8 thirds and earnings of more than $1,250,000 in 96 starts in 2017. Her stakes winners included Dixie Moon (Cup and Saucer and Jammed Lovely Stakes), Mr. Havercamp (Vice Regent & Bunty Lawless Stakes), Guy Caballero (Plate Trial Stakes) all of which were bred and owned by the Fitzhenrys along with Financial Recovery (Ontario Damsel Stakes) bred by David Anderson’s Anderson Farms Ontario Inc. and owned in partnership with Narolla LLC.
David Anderson, who owns a number of horses under the tutelage of trainer Catherine Day Phillips, is also a Sovereign Award finalist for Outstanding Breeder for 2017. David’s Anderson Farms Ontario Inc. is the breeder of three 2017 Sovereign Award Finalists; Inflexibility (Three-year-old Filly and Female Turf) Wonder Gadot (Two-year-old Filly) and Tower of Texas (Male Turf). Anderson Farms broodmare, Loving Vindication, producer of Wonder Gadot and stakes runner Solemn Tribute, is also a finalist for Lifetime Achievement Sovereign Award for Outstanding Broodmare.
Woodbine’s leading jockey, Eurico Rosa da Silva, pictured above aboard Dixie Moon, is a regular rider for trainer Catherine Day Phillips. He is once again a finalist for Outstanding Jockey in 2017, having won this award five previous years.
The Sovereign Awards will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on Thursday, April 19, 2018.
© 2016 Catherine Day Phillips Racing Stable
