Euro Charline: a success story that could have been even greater
July 8th, 2016
So commented trainer Marco Botti Wednesday on Twitter, after Team Valor International’s globetrotting mare was retired due to a tendon injury. She was all set to contest Friday’s Falmouth (G1) at Newmarket, in which she had finished a strong second last year.
“In the lead up to the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes on Friday,” Team Valor CEO Barry Irwin said, “she’s done a tendon breezing on the all weather gallop, which last week took a lot of rain.”
Euro Charline ranks as the richest distaffer ever campaigned by Team Valor, with $2,353,010 in career earnings, and she has entered Arlington history as the only 3-year-old filly to win the Beverly D. (G1).
Nevertheless, there must be a touch of “what might have been” for a high-class performer who could have padded her resume further, but for unfortunate circumstances and injury.
Euro Charline started her life as a bargain-basement weanling, selling for a scant 800 guineas ($1,330) as a Tattersalls February yearling. At the same venue in October 2012, Italian-based Scuderia Blueberry purchased her for 13,000 guineas ($22,008).
A smashing winner of her first two starts on Wolverhampton’s all-weather, Euro Charline was snapped up by Team Valor but remained with Botti. She proved herself on the class hike at Newmarket when second in the 2014 Nell Gwyn (G3) and a respectable fifth in the 1000 Guineas (G1).
Euro Charline began to show that she might be something even better in Royal Ascot’s Coronation (G1), rallying for a slightly unlucky third. She roared back with a front-running victory over the same course and one-mile trip in the Valiant, where she came again to rebuff the challenge of Kiyoshi.
That set Euro Charline up for her signature win in the Beverly D. Stretching out beyond a mile for the first time, and facing a deep and talented field of her elders, she rolled from off the pace to win handsomely. Stephanie’s Kitten and Just the Judge, second and third, were among the vanquished who kept flattering the Beverly D. form for the rest of the season.
But by that point, Euro Charline wasn’t in a position to build on her own success. Transferred to Todd Pletcher for a U.S. campaign that was slated to include the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup (G1) and Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1), she sustained an injury in training and had an ankle chip surgically removed.
Euro Charline rejoined Botti in Newmarket and set her sights on an ambitious comeback in the 2015 Dubai Turf (G1) versus males. Too fresh off the seven-month holiday, she over-raced on the lead and tired for fourth behind the streaking Solow. Yet she was beaten only a shade over a length by runner-up The Grey Gatsby, with Mshawish nearby in third.
Next on the itinerary was the Duke of Cambridge (G2) at Royal Ascot, but the starters didn’t give her a lot of time after she initially refused to load, and sent the rest of the field on their way as she stood bereft at the gate.
Thus Euro Charline’s British return, and second start back from surgery, didn’t come until last July’s Falmouth. She acquitted herself very well when just succumbing to the red-hot Amazing Maria, and a return trip to the Beverly D. beckoned. Unfortunately, Arlington’s rain-softened ground was against Euro Charline, who didn’t help her own cause by striding forward to lead early, and she wound up fourth. The script unfolded the same way in the Matron (G1) at a yielding Leopardstown, with Euro Charline again fading to fifth.
Not seen again until the March 3 Balanchine (G2) at Dubai’s Meydan, Euro Charline advertised that she was returning to her best by closing strongly for second to loose-on-the-lead Very Special. She duly progressed versus males in the March 26 Dubai Turf (G1), beating all bar Japan’s Real Steel. The Dubai Turf form has taken a series of knocks in the interim, but she ran a mighty race as the runner-up.
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