Staton Flurry's highest moments in horse racing have come with trainer Brad Cox, those involving Shedaresthedevil belonging in a special category.
The Hot Springs owner celebrated his first graded-stakes victories with Mr. Misunderstood, a grass-loving son of 2011 Arkansas Derby winner Archarcharch. Mr. Misunderstood won the Grade 2 Wise Dan and three Grade 3 stakes at Churchill Downs besides the only grass running of the Super Derby at Louisiana Downs. Racing until age 6, Mr. Misunderstood finished just short of $1 million in career earnings with a 13-5-4 record from 33 starts.
Flurry, who along with mother Dorothy owns a parking lot across from Oaklawn and various rental properties, has enjoyed greater success with Shedaresthedevil. Flurry, one of three co-owners, influenced the purchase of the Daredevil filly for $280,000 after her 2-year-old season. At 3, she gave Flurry his first Oaklawn graded victory (Grade 3 Honeybee) and in a Grade 1 race (Kentucky Oaks, over next-out Preakness winner Swiss Skydiver). Shedaresthedevil has been even better at 4 with two more Grade 1 victories plus the Grade 2 Azeri at Oaklawn.
Though the leading money winner in the field ($2,291,458), Shedaresthedevil is an early co-second choice at 4-1 behind 8-5 favorite Letruska ($2,236,459) in today's Grade 1 $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff at Del Mar. Letruska's only 2021 defeat came by a head to Shedaresthedevil in the Azeri March 13, although the 5-year-old Super Saver mare avenged the loss in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps June 5 at Belmont Park.
Letruska's first of four Grade 1 victories this year came in Oaklawn's Apple Blossom Handicap April 17 by a nose over Monomoy Girl with a second American champion, Swiss Skydiver, third. Letruska, a Kentucky-bred and past Mexican champion, has 17 victories to Shedaresthedevil's 9 and comes off back-to-back Grade 1 scores at Saratoga and Keeneland.
Letruska, ranked No. 2 in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association poll, is a candidate for Horse of the Year with a Distaff victory and a favorable outcome in the $6 million Classic. Trainer Cox has the top two choices in the latter race and also in the NTRA poll, 5-year-old Knicks Go and 3-year-old Essential Quality.
Reaping his first Eclipse Award as leading trainer last year after saddling four Breeders' Cup winners at Keeneland, Cox says Shedaresthedevil deserves an Eclipse as champion older female if she wins the Distaff. Worth noting is that Shedaresthedevil has not gone nine furlongs (the Distaff distance) since last year's Kentucky Oaks while Letruska's last three wins came at a mile and an eighth.
"Letruska will be favored," Cox said, "but we've run against her twice and it's even at one and one, so we're hoping we can win the rubber match. In the Azeri, Shedaresthedevil ran a big race off the layoff (since October) and we felt like she was probably 90 percent ready, but she was able to establish a big lead and hold off Letruska.
"I know that we can beat Her. We've just got to have some racing luck and a good setup. I mean, it's been done."
Letruska has led at every pole since running third early in the Azeri. She has won her last five races with Irad Ortiz Jr. in the saddle. Shedaresthedevil does not need the lead and, unlike Letruska, has a Del Mar victory, most recently in the Grade 1 Clement L. Hirsch Aug. 1. Florent Geroux keeps the mount.
After starting her career in California for trainer Simon Callaghan, Shedaresthedevil's first race for Flurry came Feb. 15, 2020, when second to stablemate Bonny South in an Oaklawn allowance/optional claimer. She sat out the BC Distaff, which stablemate Monomoy Girl won a second time, after taking the Oaks. Original owner Qatar Racing Limited (Sheikh Fahad chairman) and Big Aut Farms (Autry Lowry, a racetrack friend of Flurry from Bossier City, La.) have shares in the filly.
The Distaff "more than likely," Flurry says, will be Shedaresthedevil's last race in his behalf. She follows the path of Monomoy Girl ($9.5 million last year) into Tuesday's Fasig-Tipton "Night of the Stars" Sale in Lexington, Ky.
Accompanied by his mother, Flurry says his only anxious moment this week came on the flight to Southern California, delayed by numerous cancellations. He felt more at home after getting a Breeders' Cup hat with Shedaresthedevil's name across the front.
"I think we're loaded and ready to race," he said. "I wouldn't trade places with anybody."