Seaford, DE --- This spring, unraced 3-year-old pacing filly River Runs Thru It was galloping around with a herd of broodmares. A relatively quick six months later, she’s won three of her last five starts and earned nearly $13,000.
“She’s been doing everything right,” said Mike Patterson, the filly’s owner and trainer.
River Runs Thru It (Riverboat King-TJ Run) won her most recent start at Dover Downs on Nov. 4, taking a new lifetime mark of 1:56.1. Patterson, a lifelong horseman, couldn’t have been prouder after watching his prize filly -- the only horse in his stable -- make a move from last to cross the wire first.
She’s come a long way from the filly that left the broodmares to run up to the fence the first time Patterson saw her. He started working with River Runs Thru It, who he essentially got for free, in April.
The filly is the sixth foal and fourth winner out of TJ Run p,1:54s ($157,031). Although she’d started training as a 2-year-old, she was turned out for the winter and had yet to return to jogging in 2014 when Patterson took her on.
He admits the filly’s solid red coat made him hesitant.
“I was a little prejudiced,” he said, adding that he had experience with a number of chestnut pacers by Riverboat King during his years working for trainer John Wagner and hadn’t been impressed.
He further doubted his decision to begin training River Runs Thru It the first time he asked her to go a little faster than her preferred jogging pace.
“I chirped to her and she flashed her tail,” he said. “I thought, ‘oh great she’s temperamental.’”
The filly seemed happy enough to jog though, so Patterson kept going with her, eventually beginning to turn her the right way of the track for some training miles. Things went well until she got stuck at 2:20. Patterson, who stables at Les Givens’ farm in Seaford, credits Les and Brandon Givens with helping to get the filly down to qualifying time. With some training company and a few equipment changes, River Runs Thru It was ready for the races by July.
She proved to be a little shaky at first, making breaks on and off at Ocean Downs throughout July and August, but Patterson says tighter hobbles and a few steady miles toward the end of the meet gave her confidence.
“Once she found out she could do it she started wanting to do it,” Patterson said.
The filly won her first race in 1:59.3 on Sept. 25 at Harrington Raceway for driver Tony Morgan, who has since become her regular reinsman. She followed that up with a second place finish from the eight hole two weeks later. On Oct. 16, she bested the non-winners of two competition, lowering her mark to 1:57.1.
She rounded out her time at Harrington with a third place finish on Oct. 23. Patterson says she never faltered that night, in spite of the fact that she had a broken line pole dangling from her neck the entire mile.
“I don’t think she’s had a bad race since she’s come to Delaware,” he said.
Patterson, who was happy just to see River Runs Thru It get qualified, is thrilled to have seen her progress from a gangly, out-of-shape green filly to a steady, confident racehorse earning checks every week.
While she didn’t have the stakes success some of his past horses, including Mad Libs p,1:53.4z ($237,549) and Shaaga p,1:55.2f ($72,527) had, she’s made his time worthwhile.
“All horses are not made to be good 2-year-olds,” Patterson said. “Sometimes you just have to have patience and wait for them to grow up.”