Buff Bradley still has the photo.
It's of his late father, Fred, in the winner's circle of Dade Park in 1938, soaking in the Henderson, Ky., venue that would become Ellis Park as well as the catalyst behind a life's work. It was at the Pea Patch where Fred Bradley fell in love with Thoroughbred racing, a passion that gave rise to his family's Indian Ridge Farm in Frankfort where he and his son worked to produce the kind of horses that would allow them to experience all the peaks and valleys of this mercurial industry.
In his decades as an owner and breeder, having one of his homebreds prevail in the biggest stakes race at his adopted home track was on par with any aspiration Fred Bradley could have conceived. Hence, when the chestnut filly out of his mare Deputy Doll stepped into the Ellis Park starting gate for the Grade 3 Gardenia Stakes 11 years ago and proceeded to saunter her way into the same winner's enclosure her owner used to visit as a kid, it held more than the obvious level of significance.
My dad grew up at Ellis Park, that was his home track and then when (the Gardenia) became their signature race, it was a race we always looked at, recalled Buff Bradley, who retired from training last year to become Associate of Sales Development at Keeneland. It's their biggest race down there and the fact it's now named after our champion mare, that does feel pretty good. It's special to me becausethat's what started it all for all of us,
More than a decade after Groupie Doll announced herself as one of the best female sprinters of her generation, the race that now bears her moniker will be contested for the eighth time at Ellis Park on Aug. 14, 2022. In 2015, the track announced it was renaming the Gardenia in honor of the Bradleys' champion following a career that saw her annex consecutive editions of the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1) en route to earning Eclipse Awards for divisional honors in 2012 and 2013.
Before she became known as a four-time Grade 1 winner and the only horse to win two runnings of the Filly & Mare Sprint, Groupie Doll was the pretty daughter of Bowman's Band that Buff Bradley held high hopes for even though her first career start didn't exactly inspire confidence.
Following her debut at Churchill Downs on June 4, 2011, an eighth-place run going five furlongs on the turf, Fred Bradley gently suggested to his son that maybe they should consider dropping the filly in for a claiming tag in her next start. What Buff Bradley had seen from Groupie Doll in the mornings, however, told him that first outing should be forgiven. After breaking her maiden next time out on the Churchill main track, she proceeded to continuously raise the bar on every expectation placed upon her copper shoulders.
In her third career start and first visit to Ellis Park, she ran her rivals off their feet during an 8 1/2-length triumph in a seven-furlong allowance test that July. When the decision was made to try her against older mares the following month in the one-mile Gardenia, it spoke to the level of confidence the Bradleys had faith that subsequently went through the roof when she galloped to a three-length triumph that day.
We always liked her and even before she ever ran the first time, we thought she would be a nice enough filly, said Bradley, who trained Groupie Doll and campaigned her along with his father and partners Carl Hurst and Brent Burns. The first time she ran was on the turf and she looked like deer in the headlights, she was just kind of like 'What's going on here.' I remember my day saying after the race 'You can drop her if you want to because I didn't see much,' and I said, 'Yeah, but I see it every day. She's going to get another shot.' And obviously the rest is history.
We knew that she was moving forward leaps and bounds obviously (heading into the Gardenia). I never like thinking too far ahead but we had already thought about that race when she won the non-winners of two and won impressively. And she was the only 3-year-old in the race that year too.
It would be eight months after her Gardenia triumph before Groupie Doll would earn another stakes victory, but when she did have another high-end breakthrough it came in eye-opening fashion. In April 2012, she notched the first of her four top-level wins when she captured the Madison Stakes (G1) at Keeneland, besting a field that included 2011 champion female sprinter Musical Romance.
That triumph kicked off a run of five straight victories for Groupie Doll, a streak that culminated with her first Breeders' Cup heroics at Santa Anita Park and only ended when Stay Thirsty edged her by the narrowest of nostrils in that November's Cigar Mile Handicap (G1).
She would go to the sidelines for nearly eight months at the conclusion of her 2011 championship campaign and when she did resurface, the Gardenia was again tapped as the spot for the Bradleys to showcase their stable star to the masses. Whereas she emerged from her first Gardenia run with questions about how good she could possibly be, however, her third-place finish in the 2013 edition of the race sparked some whispers that maybe her heralded form was now missing a step.
Just as he was insistent after her career debut that there was more there than the result suggested, Buff Bradley exited that Gardenia as emboldened as ever.
I think we were disappointed for about five minutes, he said. She hadn't even walked up to the top of the stretch before going back to the barn and we just kind of caught ourselves and said, 'Hey she made her run, she showed us that she's back.' The initial blow of not winning maybe caught us right there because you're expecting to win, you want to win. But we caught our heads and got really positive again real quickly. We knew that race was going to move her forward.
I had people just questioning me that maybe she'd lost a step, maybe she's not as good. I said let me tell you, this filly couldn't be any better than she is right now.
Three starts later, Bradley didn't need to convince anyone of how exceptional Groupie Doll was. She returned to Santa Anita and again departed with Breeders' Cup hardware having bested future champion Judy the Beauty by a half-length for her second Filly & Mare Sprint crown.
In the days that followed, another whirlwind of emotion would hit her connections when Groupie Doll was sold to Mandy Pope's Whisper Hill Farm for $3.1 million at the 2013 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. She would retire after a final career victory in the Hurricane Bertie Stakes (G3) in February 2014, providing the Bradleys with one last image of her in the winner's circle and giving Fred Bradley full realization of a dream that first manifested at the Western Kentucky track he called home.
You know, when she won the Breeders' Cup, that was my relief. I felt like I could breathe, Buff Bradley said. I knew that she had done what we wanted her to do. I knew what she could do, and I just wanted her to prove it.
Read more:
- US GAO - About GAO - 100 Years of GAO - Government Accountability Office [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- Oklahoma football: Baker Mayfield making OU history in the NFL - Stormin' in Norman [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- Here are the 5 biggest HRs in Padres history - MLB.com [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- Corey Crawford retires as one of the best in Chicago Blackhawks history - Da Windy City [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- Cardinal Koch: History of separation can be part of history of reconciliation - Vatican News [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- The Local Take Talks Health, History and African Americans - WCLK [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- In Depth: What history tell us about the US Capitol riots - RADIO.COM [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- Brighton Women's History Roll Of Honor Accepting Nominations For 2021 Inductees - WHMI [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- Who Has the Most Rushing Yards and Touchdowns in NFL Playoff History? - Sportscasting [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- Denver's cataloguing its Latino and Chicano history through places and buildings - Denverite [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- The Apple Car would wreck Apple, and Tesla's incredibly volatile history shows why - Business Insider [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- America Is Not Exceptional. It Has a History of Violence. - The Intercept [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- A brief history of the headscarf - CNN [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- On this date in history: -60 temperature reported in Cameron, WI - WQOW TV News 18 [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- Morning Flurries: WHL announcement and the Toronto Marlies make history - Mile High Hockey [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- How Warnock and Ossoff's victories evoked the history of the Black freedom struggle - CNN [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- Presidential Pours: A History of Wine in the White House - The Wall Street Journal [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- Today in History - MyMotherLode.com [Last Updated On: January 9th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 9th, 2021]
- Today in History: George Washington approved adding two stars, two stripes to the American flag - Lompoc Record [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- More inclusive: Local principal, teacher to help review history education in Virginia - WYDaily [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- Here's a salute to one of Ohio women's suffrage pioneers - Richland Source [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- Police Commissioners brother, an SFPD sergeant, has a history of shootings and excessive force complaints - Mission Local [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- On January 13 in NYR history: The longest unbeaten streak ever in the NHL - Blue Line Station [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- Democratic Party history from the year you were born - Buffalo News [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- A US history teacher tries to explain attacks - The Hechinger Report [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- Ron Rivera Embraced History To Find Success In His First Season In Washington - Forbes [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- The Mother Lode: This is history in the making - again - for kids - CT Insider [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- The History Behind 'Mob' Mentality - The New York Times [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- 'I saw my life flash before my eyes': An oral history of the Capitol attack | TheHill - The Hill [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- The US Capitol attack fits into the history of White backlash - CNN [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- Bylaws of the Department of History - Nevada Today [Last Updated On: January 13th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 13th, 2021]
- Subversive Capital Acquisition Corp. Closes The Largest Cannabis SPAC In History And Announces The Launch Of The Parent Company With Shawn... [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- Out of the Attic: The Moss Kendrix Collection at the Black History Museum - Alexandria Times [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- How Does the Nets' Big Three Compare to Other Big Threes in NBA History? - InsideHook [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- The Ku Klux Klans history is a warning about the Capitol riot - Vox.com [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- New Phillies reliever made postseason history vs. Pat Neshek - That Balls Outta Here [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- Lionel Gossman, specialist in French literature and history and 'one of the great humanists and scholar-teachers of his generation,' dies at 91 -... [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- 'Southern Charm': Leva Bonaparte Is on The Right Side Of History. Are You? - Decider [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- This Place in History: Warren Austin - Local 22/44 News [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- Here's how Tom Brady and the Buccaneers could make NFL history if they win their next two playoff games - CBS Sports [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- A History of the Trump Era Through Stories About Toilets - New York Magazine [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- 'Alarmingly Similar.' What the Chaos Around Lincoln's First Inauguration Can Tell Us About Today, According to Historians - TIME [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- A Brief Cultural History of Work Sucking - The New Republic [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- Naples Underground Featured on the History Channel - PRNewswire [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- Derby history is not kind to the Lecomte - VSiN [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- Gandhi, History, and the Lessons of the Events at the Capitol - The New Yorker [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- Will Donald Trump go down as the worst president in history? - CNN [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- View and delete your browsing history in Internet Explorer [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- View and delete browser history in Microsoft Edge [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- This Day in History - What Happened Today - HISTORY [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- History | discipline | Britannica [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- History - Wikipedia [Last Updated On: January 15th, 2021] [Originally Added On: January 15th, 2021]
- The most memorable walkoff wins in Cubs history, Part 2: Original NL teams - Bleed Cubbie Blue [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- Dustin Pedroia will always have a place in Red Sox history; what about the Hall of Fame? - CBS Sports [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- Sundance: 'Judas and the Black Messiah' introduces 'a history thats been buried in this country' - USA TODAY [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- Virginia teacher uses bowties to share history and teach life lessons - WAVY.com [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- Kremlin critic Navalny tells court that Putin will go down in history as nothing but an 'underpants poisoner' - Yahoo News [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- Trump's impeachment lawyers have a history of being involved in controversial legal matters - KCTV Kansas City [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- 'Black History is a Verb': A young poet's message about Black history in America - KARE11.com [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- February is Black History Month and Heart Month. Why one cardiologist says thats a good coincidence. - ABC27 [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- Thanks to the Internet Archive, the history of American newspapers is more searchable than ever - Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- Creativity Is the Focus of Black History Month 2021 | | SBU News - Stony Brook News [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- This Black History Month, remember: History isnt here to make you feel good - Chicago Sun-Times [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- Black History Month: How did it start, and why February? - 11Alive.com WXIA [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2021]
- Comparing COVID-19 to other deadly diseases in U.S. history - CBS News 8 [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- Talk of the Times: Touring the rich history of Cape Ann - Gloucester Daily Times [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- Vice President Harris inspiring Black women and girls everywhere during Black History Month - Wink News [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- Brookshire Grocery Company publishes book to share 92-year history - Weatherford Democrat [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- Black History Month: Wyoming County was active on the Underground Railroad - The Daily News Online [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- Suspect in NMSP officers death had an extensive criminal history - KTSM 9 News [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- This week in history: Historical Society votes to move forward with fundraising for museum - Albert Lea Tribune - Albert Lea Tribune [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- The topsy-turvy history of the Nissan Pathfinder - Autoblog [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- God and government linked in history | Religion And Values | messenger-inquirer.com - messenger-inquirer [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- Black History and Heritage - The San Diego Union-Tribune [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- Behringer Crawford's NKY History Hour will feature Travis Brown and Locks and Dams of Ohio River - User-generated content [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- History and Hope: A conversation with Seaside's John Nash - KSBW Monterey [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- Today in History | National News - Tulsa World [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- NFL: Protesting players 'on the right side of history,' union says - Reuters [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- The True History Behind Netflix's 'The Dig' and Sutton Hoo - Smithsonian Magazine [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]
- A look at the top rotations in Dodgers history - Los Angeles Times [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2021] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2021]