A winner of four stakes in 2007, Sealy Hill also took home the awards for champion 3-year-old filly and champion female turf horse. The ceremony took place at Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto.
Sealy Hill, out of the Boston Harbor mare Boston Twist, swept the Triple Tiara, a series of three races for Canadian-bred 3-year-old fillies, taking the Labatt Woodbine Oaks, Bison City, and Wonder Where. She also captured the Bourbonette Breeders’ Cup Stakes (gr. III) March 24 at Turfway Park and was second in a pair of graded stakes at Woodbine, including the E.P. Taylor Stakes (Can-I).
Sealy Hill became the third female to win Canada's Horse of the Year honors since the current Sovereign Awards voting system has been in place.
The connections of Sealy Hill, owner Eugene Melnyk, trainer Mark Casse, and jockey Patrick Husbands, all won Sovereign Awards in their respective categories.
Melnyk Racing Stables won 15 races in 2007, including six stakes, and led all Woodbine owners in earnings with $2,030,805. Sealy Hill earned almost half of that total with $958,389.
Casse had a career year at Woodbine, winning 84 races, 24 more than the next closest trainer. He also captured 13 stakes events and a pair of Canadian graded stakes.
Husbands won his fifth Sovereign Award, by leading all Canadian riders with 149 wins, 21 Canadian stakes, and $8.8-million in earnings. He won 20% of his more than 700 mounts. It was his fifth Sovereign Award.
Cloudy’s Knight, runner-up to Sealy Hill for Horse of the Year, won the champion male turf horse award. Owned by S J Stable and trained by Frank Kirby, Cloudy’s Knight earned the honors by taking the Pattison Canadian International (Can-I) and Sky Classic (Can-II), both on the Woodbine turf. The 7-year-old Lord Avie gelding also scored in the Feb. 10 Fair Grounds Breeders’ Cup Handicap (gr. IIIT).
Other Sovereign Award winners were: Tyler Pizarro (apprentice jockey), Lover’s Talk (broodmare), Adena Springs (breeder), Kodiak Kowboy (2-year-old male), Dancing Allstar (2-year-old female), Alezzandro (3-year-old male), Financingavailable (older female on main track; sprinter), True Metropolitan (older male on main track) and Louis Romanet (Award of Merit).
