The end of December has come around, and unless you have been living under a rock these last five (!) years, you know what that means: it’s time for the Twelve Days of Curlin Babies!

As always, the Twelve Days of Curlin Babies features memorable races by Curlin’s progeny at every level of the game. From graded stakes races to lunch-pail claimers, from up-and-coming young horses to durable first-crop runners who are still finding the winners’ circle, Curlin babies once again brought excitement to the racetrack.

For the next twelve days, we remember the highlights.

#12: Timeless Curls Marks Herself a Rising Star

Timeless Curls (Lookinforchange, by Gilded Time) is the first foal out of stakes-winning sprinter Lookinforchange. Her dam isn’t the only indication that she was meant to be a racehorse: Lookinforchange is a half-sister to both star New Jersey-bred Geeky Gorgeous (Devil His Due), a multiple stakes winner, as well as stakes winner Chubble Maker (Hey Chub).

Despite this, she slid under the radar as a yearling. It runs in the family: her dam sold for $5,700 as a two-year-old, and ended up winning over $200,000 on the track. Cataloged as hip 2115 in the Keeneland September 2016 yearling sale, Timeless Curls sold to owner Sookdeen Pasram for just $35,000.

It took some time for the Dale Capuano trainee to make it to the track. Timeless Curls made her debut over a sloppy Pimlico track on May 18, in a maiden special weight to kick off Black-Eyed Susan Day. Sent off the chalk, she finished second beaten a head. She kept trying, and not quite getting there, in a pair of starts at Laurel in June: she finished third, then second.

As fall approached, she caught fire. August 2 at Laurel she stretched out to two turns for the first time, and responded with a frontrunning four and a quarter-length victory. Though she finished three-quarters of a length second in her first try against winners, September 1 at Delaware, she quickly rediscovered her winning ways. She shed her one-other-than condition over a mile at Delaware on October 3. She then quickly dispensed with her second-level condition on November 9, over a one-turn mile at Laurel.

Timeless Curls was favoured in her N1X victory, and went off a shade below 5/2 in her N2X victory. The board told a different story November 29 at Laurel, when she lined up for a three-other-than going seven furlongs over the Laurel dirt. The lightly-raced three-year-old filly went off at 10/1 against a salty group of fillies and mares. Favoured Isotope, like Timeless Curls also riding a two-race win streak, was a year older and making her 18th career start. Four-year-old Sine Wave had a pair of money finishes in graded stakes, five-year-old Imply already had four Pennsylvania-bred stakes wins to her name, and Trace of Grace had one.

The daughter of Curlin ceded experience to every single one of her foes that day. At the wire, that didn’t matter.

Timeless Curls came out sharply, but as Sine Wave and Lady by Choice made the running, she responded when the hands of jockey Weston Hamilton implored her to wait. Favoured Isotope made a move on the leading pair from just outside of Timeless Curls on the turn, but settled more kindly than she was on the backstretch, she waited her turn.

Shaken up into the lane, Timeless Curls took a moment to get going. But, in the final furlong, she stopped spinning her wheels and shifted into the next gear. She joined the fray between Isotope and Lady by Choice, had aim on Isotope with a sixteenth of a mile remaining, and willed herself a head in front at the wire.

Timeless Curls returned to the worktab on December 13, and worked again today. Keep an eye through the winter and into her four-year-old year; the Mid-Atlantic may be home to Curlin’s newest rising star.