Mathis Family Enjoys Racing Second Time Around
9th-GPX, $39,000, Msw, 3yo, f, 1m, 1:35 2/5, ft.
MY MISS SOPHIA, f, 3, by Unbridled’s Song
1st Dam: Wildwood Flower (SW & MGSP,
$109,916), by Langfuhr
2nd Dam: Dial a Trick, by Phone Trick
3rd Dam: Ice Fantasy, by It’s Freezing
My Miss Sophia set the pace, but was passed late when second over 5 1/2 furlongs at this track in her Feb. 9 debut. The 1-2 favorite dawdled slightly at the break, but recovered quickly and took up a stalking position leaving the chute. Third while racing along the rail through a quarter in :23.11, she pulled her way into contention after a half in :45.71. She easily took charge on the turn and stormed clear down the stretch under a hand ride to win by 11 lengths. Senior Prom (Mr. Greeley) was second. The winner was a $260,000 KEESEP yearling. Her dam, Wildwood Flower, is a half to multiple graded stakes winner Eye of the Tiger (American Chance) and to the dam of GI Travers S. winner Afleet Express (Afleet Alex). Click for the brisnet.com chart or VIDEO. Click for brisnet.com catalogue-style pedigree.
Lifetime Record: 2-1-1-0, $31,800. O-Mathis Stable LLC. B-John D Gunther (KY). T-Todd A Pletcher.
Oklahoma residents Bill and Terry Mathis and their three children ventured to Hallandale to watch My Miss Sophia make her second trip to the post Sunday and the filly made the trek more than worth the effort.
“We came to Gulfstream Park to see My Miss Sophia run and we couldn’t be more thrilled,” Bill Mathis said from the Gulfstream backstretch soon after his chestnut filly put up a J “TDN Rising Star” J performance. “Todd had told us she was doing very well, so we thought she would run a respectable race. After she broke slowly, we were concerned about how she might do, but it was just really impressive how she kept finding more and finished so strongly.”
Mathis credited trainer Todd Pletcher with picking My Miss Sophia out as a $260,000 Keeneland September yearling in 2012.
“Todd is so good at spotting a horse in the right place and he deserves all the credit for identifying the horse at the September sale and telling us about her,” Mathis said. “We’ve been patient with her. I think he was hoping to run her at Saratoga last summer, but he just needed to give her a little more time and we’re so glad he did.”
Mathis has a long association with the Pletcher family.
“My father had horses with J.J. Pletcher when I was growing up, so I’ve known, not only Todd, but also his father for 30-plus years,” Mathis recalled.
My Miss Sophia is named after the Mathises 11-year-old daughter. The four-horse Mathis Stable also includes a pair of colts named after the couple’s sons: the unraced Larry Boy (Old Fashioned) and Biedermeier (Empire Maker).
The Mathises were involved in horse racing in the 1980s and enjoyed plenty of success.
“We had Pine Tree Lane, who was second in the [1986] GI Breeders’ Cup Sprint before they had a filly division, so we had to run the boys with the girls. She ran second that day. We had other New York stakes horses when Todd was an assistant with the Lukas operation.”
Out of the business for nearly 20 years, the couple decided to get back into the game in 2011.
“We’re enjoying it immensely and we’re hopeful we’ll be in the business for a long time to come,” said Mathis, who owns the retail furniture company Mathis Brothers Furniture.
In addition to their four horses in training with Pletcher, Mathis also has three broodmares.
“We have two broodmares who were injured,” Mathis explained. “We had them in training and when their careers were over, we decided to keep them and we got a foal last month and we’re expecting one more in March. They are with Taylor Made. And then we had a horse Mesana (Mizzen Mast) who broke her maiden very impressively with John Shirreffs at Hollywood Park [Nov. 28]. She was injured in her last start, so she is on her way to Lane’s End to be bred to Candy Ride (Arg). We are partners with Lane’s End with her.”
The resulting foals may end up in the sales ring.
“I think we’re going to see how they are evaluated by Taylor Made and just make that decision when it’s time,” Mathis explained. “We’ll put them in the sales and see what sort of response we get and make that decision when it’s time. I think we feel a little more safe in buying fillies because you have that option at the end of their career. The two that we bred were horses that John Shirreffs told us he thought had a tremendous amount of talent, but they never got to show it on the track. That’s an opportunity to go ahead and have the horse bring you some joy as a broodmare even though she wasn’t that successful in her racing career. It’s just an option we have.”
After their stop in Hallandale, the Mathises are on their way to Ocala for Tuesday’s March sale.
“I don’t know if we’ll make a purchase or not,” Mathis said. “We’ll have to consult with Todd about that.”
Does My Miss Sophia’s performance Sunday make it more likely they’ll be active at OBS?
“There is no question,” he said. “Having some success breeds success.” -Jessica Martini