Stewart and Fipke’s wild ride at an end

Apple Blossom. She also would win the Grade 1 Beldame that fall, and her three losses that season – a close second in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps, a close third in the Grade 1 Personal Ensign, and a troubled third in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff – all were excellent. In the Distaff, Forever Unbridled got away sluggishly and ceded too much ground to Beholder and Songbird. She was coming at that pair the final quarter-mile and ran out of racetrack.

Forever Unbridled was slow to return last year, and when she finally debuted in the Fleur de Lis Handicap at Churchill Downs on June 17, Stewart made clear he was running a horse that needed a race. Forever Unbridled still won easily. She didn’t start again for two months, and when she did, she ran down the great Songbird, who with her speed had a tactical advantage, to win the Personal Ensign at Saratoga.

“After that, we could’ve went and run in the Beldame, but I felt like I could train her to the Breeders’ Cup,” Stewart said.

Stewart came out of the Lukas school, and Wayne Lukas stakes horses never missed many dances. Not long ago, it would’ve been difficult to imagine Stewart giving a horse this good a three-start campaign, and many doubted Forever Unbridled would be at her best last fall in the Distaff. But she ran right back to her Personal Ensign, rolling to a convincing win over top 3-year-old Abel Tasman and on to an Eclipse Award.

“I know her real good,” Stewart said. “I’d like to brag on it and say it was me, but she’s just kind of a unique horse.”

Fipke, clearly smitten with his star mare, will brag on it.

“People tell me she could sell for $15 million in the auction ring if the right bidders were there,” he said. “But I’d rather have her than $15 million.”

Fipke bandied about the idea of racing Forever Unbridled in the BC Classic, not the Distaff, last year, and she briefly was aimed at the Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream, a race in which Stewart and Fipke eventually ran Seeking the Soul, a Fipke homebred who took down the Grade 1 Clark last fall. Stewart never had been to Dubai, and he actually missed saddling Givemeaminit to a fourth-place finish Saturday in the $1 million Louisiana Derby in order to come here.

It’s unconventional, to say the least, bringing a 6-yearold mare back for a one-start campaign halfway around the world. But if it was Fipke that spurred this trip, he just might have the right horse – and the right trainer – to make unconventional work.