Wonder Wheel, bred by Three Chimneys Farm and Clearsky Farms, earned an Eclipse Award as Champion 2-year-old Filly of 2022 at the ceremony on Thursday evening.
Wonder Wheel won both the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) and Alcibiades S. (G1) as well as the Debutante S. at Churchill Downs, and was second in the Spinaway S. (G1). With four wins in five starts, the dark bay has earned $1,550,725 for Len and Lois Green’s D J Stable.
Her stellar campaign earned her 240 out 246 first-place votes.
“This (past) summer I was saying she’s my next Classic Empire,” Wonder Wheel’s trainer Mark Casse said, comparing her to his 2016 juvenile champion colt. “And where I was putting her, why I was putting her in that category was he won our first 2-year-old Breeders’ Cup. And I thought that she was that good.”
Clearsky also consigned Wonder Wheel to the 2021 Keeneland September Yearling sale, where the Greens purchased her for $275,000. She is the second foal out of Wonder Gal, herself a three-time stakes winner of over $900,000.
Since her Breeders’ Cup win in November, Wonder Wheel was given a freshening and is now back at Casse’s southern Florida barn preparing for her 2023 debut.
