For most of America, late October marks Halloween’s hurrah before Thanksgiving and Christmas prep takes over. But for the racing world, that time of year is all about the Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships. This year, Dr. Robert C. Gardiner, co-owner of Super Corredora, got his latest Breeders’ Cup thrill when the horse won the NetJets Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1).
The filly is a daughter of leading sire Gun Runner ; her dam is a half-sister to the dam of multiple grade 1 winner Gunite (also by that Hall of Fame runner). West Point Thoroughbreds purchased Super Corredora for $400,000 at the 2024 Keeneland September Yearling sale. West Point, Spartan Equine Racing LLC, Gardiner, and Michael W. Olszewski now campaign the filly together.
“I am a retired orthopedic surgeon based out of a suburb of Kansas City,” Gardiner said, “and I've vicariously been involved in racing for a long time, started way back going to Ak-Sar-Ben with my father, but really got fairly heavily involved about a decade ago when I started being able to race at that time and be a participant.”
“I looked around and looked at a lot of partnerships and landed with West Point Thoroughbreds,” Gardiner said. “And I partnered with them on several horses and then throughout the years have gravitated to now being involved in the breeding side of it with being an owner in a stallion and then partially own the stallion and several broodmares. And so, we’re on the breeding side, the racing side, and trying to be involved in the entire industry.”
That stallion is none other than 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline . That undefeated wonder rounded out his career with a triumph in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1); Gardiner credits Team Flightline, including trainer John Sadler, assistant trainer Juan Leyva, bloodstock agent David Ingordo, and jockey Flavien Prat, for doing such great work on the colt. Some of the Dream Team has reunited with Super Corredora, although Hector Barrios is aboard. Of Barrios, Gardiner said, “He’s done a marvelous job on Super Corredora.”
Gardiner said of his star filly, “I was involved with her from the very start, too, and [West Point President/CEO] Terry Finley’s been really, really good about putting good partnerships together and he asked if I wanted to be involved with her and we’re involved in a major way. And I told Terry, ‘She’s got a great pedigree and it looks like she’s a good horse for distance.’ I told him, ‘I want to be involved, but I have a couple of conditions.’ Number one, I wanted to see her go back to John Sadler and Juan Leyva because they did such a wonderful job with Flightline. And then the second was that I wanted to name her.”
Super Corredora broke her maiden in her third start on Oct. 11 at Santa Anita, coasting home first by 8 1/4 lengths. Just 20 days later, she was back at Del Mar to face off against the best of her crop, and she outlasted favored Explora by 3/4 of a length in the Juvenile Fillies. Gardiner said, “She’s a distance horse and the first couple of races as a juvenile, you’re not starting out at distance. So, we were in a couple of tough maiden special weights and she improved each time, but once she got to distance and a two-turn, things really changed. And I guess the comparison would be at first… It’s like, oh, famous miler Jim Ryun—I’m from Kansas, so he’s an Olympic miler—and you were racing against Usain Bolt, but the first races you were racing in the hundred and now we’re in the mile and that’s where she’s comfortable and she really, really developed and did very well at this.”
Gardiner has 15 to 20 broodmares boarded at Lane’s End Farm near Versailles, Ky. Before she retires, though, what does he hope Super Corredora will accomplish? He said, “Well, we’re off to a great start. I’d like to see her maybe win another race or so and go to the Kentucky Oaks [G1] and then have a great three-year-old career and then maybe end up back in the Breeders’ Cup this time next year.”
