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Stonebridge Kisses reaches milestone mark

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February 19, 2008

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It was just a fifth-place finish in the second round of the Cape & Cutter Series at the Meadowlands Friday, Feb. 15, but the $2,000 check earned by Stonebridge Kisses brought the career earnings of the 8-year-old mare to more than $1 million. The accomplishment comes two years after an injury�ironically coming in a Cape & Cutter division�nearly cost her her life.

�She fell in the Cape & Cutter and needed about 500 stitches to close her leg up,� remembered trainer Mark Ford, who purchased the daughter of Artiscape on behalf of owner Martin Scharf in Nov. 2004. �If it wasn�t for Dr. Celeste Kunz, the Thoroughbred vet at the Meadowlands, I�m sure she would have been put down that night. And then she had to have follow-up surgery to remove scar tissue.�

The incident came after a year in which Stonebridge Kisses earned $374,676 and took her mark of 1:50.2 at Mohawk. The injury caused her to miss four months of racing, but she still earned more than $120,000 that year. She then made 46 starts last year, earning $291,699.

Ford said Stonebridge Kisses has also been on the brink of retirement for the past few years, but her on-track efforts keep delaying that decision.

�We were going to breed her (in 2006) but we couldn�t get her in foal because of all the trauma from the injury,� said Ford. �We were going to breed her last year and she started racing good, and when she got close to $1 million we thought we�d give her one more year.

�We were going to breed her this year, and we still have a couple weeks to make a decision,� he added. �It�s not very prudent to think that she can race at this level another year, but then again, why not? She shows no signs of slowing down and she is better now than she was any time in her life."

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