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00:00Hard not to love will be a successful broodmare because she had style, she had class, and
00:17she had elegance, and she was able to put all those together.
00:22But she always had that sparkle in her eye.
00:25Hard not to love is the real deal.
00:27She combines all the elements that you look for in a brilliant broodmare prospect, a six-time
00:32greatest stakes performer, very versatile in terms of the distances that she ran.
00:37She was just a queen looking physical.
00:41And when I use that term to describe a mare, you know, a queen is a monarch and a foundation.
00:47We bought Hard Not to Love in the morning, and that afternoon, her half-sister, Wonder
00:52Godot, ended up placing in a grade one.
00:55The family just became explosive, all at grade one levels.
01:01She had dealt with an eye injury, and she lost her eye at the beginning of her two-year-old
01:06year, just a freak accident.
01:09She was broken into training, to saddle, to rider, to breezing, with never having the
01:15benefit of that eye to go into training.
01:18Once she got in the gate, she was a consummate professional, and I think that's something
01:23she doesn't get enough credit for, is how mentally solid that she was.
01:27She was special because she dealt with a problem that I knew she was thinking about, and I
01:33knew was on her mind.
01:35But I think she had the class and the style and the substance to fight through.
01:42There's just a lot of goodness around her career, and I think she really drove home
01:49the things that cause us all to love this great business.
01:53Hard Not to Love's grade one win was in the La Brea, which is, in the history of racing,
02:00has been a marquee race for three-year-old fillies on the calendar.
02:04And they're off in the La Brea Stakes.
02:07She broke well, and she settled at the back of the pack, and then really just put a rousing
02:12run together.
02:13I knew going into the far turn, I knew that they were going to have a difficult time trying
02:18to contain her.
02:19And Hard Not to Love continues to storm home on the outside!
02:23Hard Not to Love, from well out of it, has taken command close to home, and it's Hard
02:30Not to Love!
02:31Mike Smith!
02:32You know, Hard Not to Love was certainly at the top of her game, posting those back-to-back
02:35grade stakes wins with the grade one in the La Brea, followed by another outstanding performance
02:40a few weeks later in the Santa Monica.
02:43Just the real quality races against real quality competition.
02:48And what a classy filly this one is!
02:50Hard Not to Love will absolutely dominate the Santa Monica as she wins by four.
02:57She is a very fast horse, and I think that's something I love to see in mares.
03:02You've got to get the speed from somewhere.
03:04I love to see it coming from the female side.
03:07The fact that she showed up every race, competed against the best of her generation, and left
03:14it all on the track each time is what I look for in a brood mare.
03:20She's got a fantastic pedigree, depth of pedigree.
03:24She also offers a lot of breeding opportunities with being by hard spun and out of a vindication
03:30mare so that really presents a world of opportunities.
03:34You know, there aren't very many times where you can get the extreme pedigree and the extreme
03:39talent and you put them together and you get a grade one on the resume.
03:44You know, overall, I think that is magic.
03:49She's a special physical individual, and then you take into the account her race record
03:55and pedigree, and those are all the things that you need to have a Blue Hen Foundation
04:01type mare.