This 2FT is over the barrel

After years working with barrel racers, Lori Castanuovo is making a name for herself with a bargain-priced trotter as she will send out Undercover Lover in the $410,000 Goldsmith Maid for 2-year-old filly trotters on Saturday night at the Meadowlands.

Castranuovo purchased the Tagliabue-Go Undercover filly for $6,700 at the Tattersalls 2006 January Select Mixed Sale held at the Meadowlands and has enjoyed a significant return on her modest investment. Undercover Lover has won six of 12 starts this season for earnings of $212,293. The only time she missed the board was in her first lifetime start.

“I purchased her here as a weanling,” Castranuovo said. “We liked the fact that it was a Tagliabue-Valley Victory cross.”

Undercover Lover swept the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes, including the $175,000 final on Sept. 16 at Pocono Downs, before wiring the field in the $211,275 Matron final at Dover on Nov. 11. However, in her $20,000 Goldsmith Maid elimination last weekend, Undercover Lover made an uncharacteristic break in stride while on the lead in the stretch.

“She couldn’t grab the track at all tonight,” Castranuovo said after the race. “It’s not like her. She was fine warming up. He (driver Mike Lachance) said once she left the gate, it was like she couldn’t grab the track. She put in a couple of steps, and he had to grab a hold of her.”

Unlike many trainers, Castranuovo, 41, did not follow a family member into harness racing. She was simply a girl from Queens (New York) who loved horses.

“I’ve been training on my own for six years,” said Castranuovo, who resides on a farm in Colts Neck, N.J. “I always had riding horses, and I was involved in barrel racing. I grew up in Queens. No one in my family was involved in the horse business. I just always loved them. One of the girls that owns the farm that we’re on used to barrel race, too and that’s how I got involved with Standardbreds. I worked for Ross Croghan and Paul Jessop, but I always had cheap horses. She (Undercover Lover) is pretty much the horse of a lifetime.” (Meadowlands)

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