Personality:
Oh Stark... where do we even begin? This colt is so sweet and gentle. He'd crawl into your lap if you let him. He loves a good scratch on his chest or up by his withers and he'll return the favor by giving you a good back scratch when you hit the good spot. As a matter of fact, this horse is just a rather itchy animal by nature, butt scratches, belly rubs and stifle scratches are a few of his favorites. However, being the large animal he is, he can't quite get all of his back scratched at once due to his ungodly high shark fin of a wither. Stark has to lay down, get one side then get back up lay down and scratch the other, however sometimes he forgets which side he just did, as you can imagine that's a rather humorous sight.
Considering all the other neurotic, wack job, crazy horses GM currently has on their roster, Stark is a breath of fresh air, easy to handle and train. This makes him one of the barn favorites wherever he goes. He enjoys the company of humans and horses alike however his best friend is a chicken that seemed to wander onto the property one day. The staff wasn't really sure what to do with the chicken but named her Harriet and now she's one of the stables mascots. Harriet goes everywhere with Stark and is always present at his races to help the staff cheer him on.
So as sweet as this horse is... we never said he was smart. Stark has a nasty habit if drifting in the turns of races and during workouts, he also has a strange knack for running straight to the outside rail instead of the inside one. We aren't too sure where he picked up the habit given both his sire and dam were excellent runners but for whatever reason Stark insists that the outside rail is the place for him to be. Aaron enlisted Steve's help to try and curb this odd habit of Stark's so they added a set of blinkers however this still did not fix the problem, the colt still ran to the outside rail. So they took a trick from Ben Jones' book and cut one of the cups off of the blinkers while adding more to the right hand side so the horse could see the inside rail but not the outside one. This seemed to help however the horse still tends to drift some and if he doesn't have an experienced rider on him he'll still go to the outside rail.
Now this sweet animal about put the GM trainers at their whits end but what made it all worth it is the sheer amount of ease this horse runs with. No motion is wasted and he gallops in a way where he just looks like he has everything together. His stride is so natural and smooth, he is the sort of horse that you just cannot help but take your eyes off of him when he runs. Except for that long tongue... he really likes to run with that thing sticking out.
Considering all the other neurotic, wack job, crazy horses GM currently has on their roster, Stark is a breath of fresh air, easy to handle and train. This makes him one of the barn favorites wherever he goes. He enjoys the company of humans and horses alike however his best friend is a chicken that seemed to wander onto the property one day. The staff wasn't really sure what to do with the chicken but named her Harriet and now she's one of the stables mascots. Harriet goes everywhere with Stark and is always present at his races to help the staff cheer him on.
So as sweet as this horse is... we never said he was smart. Stark has a nasty habit if drifting in the turns of races and during workouts, he also has a strange knack for running straight to the outside rail instead of the inside one. We aren't too sure where he picked up the habit given both his sire and dam were excellent runners but for whatever reason Stark insists that the outside rail is the place for him to be. Aaron enlisted Steve's help to try and curb this odd habit of Stark's so they added a set of blinkers however this still did not fix the problem, the colt still ran to the outside rail. So they took a trick from Ben Jones' book and cut one of the cups off of the blinkers while adding more to the right hand side so the horse could see the inside rail but not the outside one. This seemed to help however the horse still tends to drift some and if he doesn't have an experienced rider on him he'll still go to the outside rail.
Now this sweet animal about put the GM trainers at their whits end but what made it all worth it is the sheer amount of ease this horse runs with. No motion is wasted and he gallops in a way where he just looks like he has everything together. His stride is so natural and smooth, he is the sort of horse that you just cannot help but take your eyes off of him when he runs. Except for that long tongue... he really likes to run with that thing sticking out.
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Siblings:
G2 Strike A Pose G2 Georgie's Girl G5 Lunar Trek P First Strike |
Racing Info:
Race Record: 11-4-1-2
Earnings: Surface Preference: Dual (SS)
Distance: 5-8 Furlongs Grade: Four Trainer: Aaron Evertt Jockey: Andrew Martin Leg Type: Pace Presser Stark is a model citizen in more ways than one so it really shouldn't be much of a surprise that this horse practically self loads into the starting gate. He's always cool as a cucumber and never pays much attention to the commotion behind him. He rockets from the gate but the first thing he'll do is try and dart to the outside rail so his jockey has to check him pretty hard and lift the outside rain to get this horse off balance enough so he can get stuck running in with the pack. Once he's focused and realizes where he's at Stark will quickly make up quite a bit of ground and go test the leaders out some. He likes to press them a little to see exactly what they've got, from there he'll buy himself some time and when asked for the final stretch run he'll try and blow the turn which his jockey will have to be prepared for and once this colt is in front he doesn't look back. |
Two Year Old Season
1st M Limitless Maiden [7F/T] February wk 2 @TW (2)
1st G5 Rising Star Stakes [7F/T] March wk 4 @GHF (4) 1st G5+ Peru Stakes [6F/T] May wk 3 @BSD (2) 1st G5 I'm Special Stakes* [6F/T] June wk 1 @GHF (5) 2nd O TW Finish Cup Juvenile Turf* [6F/T] @TW (5) 3rd Bond Falls Maiden [7F/D] May wk 1 @BSD (3) 3rd G5+ Remson Stakes* [7.5F/T] June wk 3 @TW (6) 4th M Jumping Beans Maiden Sprint [5F/T] January wk 2 @GHF (4) 5th O Stride of Perfection Handicap* [7F/T] February wk 4 @TW (6) 5th G5+ Star Street Stakes* [7F/T] April wk 3 @BSD (5) 5th G5+ Brash Stakes* [7F/T] July wk 1 @GHF (5) |
Three Year Old Season
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Buybacks: Kenny
Horse Pictured: Gunnevera
Horse Pictured: Gunnevera