Blind Date Wins G3 Virginia Oaks

Becomes Not For Love's Second Graded Stakes Winner In A Week

07/18/2009- Having just returned from her first off-the-board finish in six lifetime starts, William M. Backer’s homebred Blind Date swung five-wide around the far turn of Colonial Downs’s outer turf course to win the $150,000 Virginia Oaks-G3 by a head on July 18.

After lagging behind early, Blind Date entered the stretch under a right handed whip by jockey Kent Desormeaux and dueled with Sagamore Farm’s Shared Account before completing the mile and an eighth over soft turf in 1:49.59.

Trained by Hamilton Smith, Blind Date (by leading Maryland sire Not For Love) has won five of seven career starts, including victories in the Hookedonthefeelin and Hilltop Stakes at Pimlico this spring. She finished seventh in Monmouth Park’s Boiling Springs Stakes-G3, her last start prior to the Virginia Oaks, but bettors still made her the 2.6-1 favorite in the 10 horse field for the Oaks.

Blind Date, whose career earnings now stand at $195,060, comes from an accomplished female family that Backer has developed since the 1970s. Although his breeding operation is based at his Smitten Farm near Middleburg, Va., Backer frequently sends his mares to Maryland for foaling. Blind Date’s dam, Snit (by Fit to Fight), a second-generation stakes-winning Backer homebred, was one of his all-time best runners, winning or placing in eight stakes, includinga victory in the Cotillion Handicap-G2. Snit’s earlier foals include multiple stakes winner Sales Tax ($143,756), a 4-year-old daughter of High Yield, and stakes-placed Bitter Lemon ($140,421), a 5-year-old daughter of Lemon Drop Kid.

Following her Oaks win, Backer declared Blind Date to be the “best of the line, by far.”