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It’s always a good thing to start off the season with a win, and it’s even better when that win is the first stakes of the season.

Robert Massey did just that when he steered William C. Lickle’s Raise A Storm to the winner’s circle in the $35,000 Little Everglades hurdle stakes, at the first meet of the season, the Little Everglades Steeplechase, Dade City, Fla., March 6.

“Well, a win like that definitely eases the tension in the barn,” said Massey with a grin. “And this horse definitely deserved it; he’s a trier.”

Five horses faced off at flag fall in a very evenly matched race. Snowball Flannagan (David Bentley) seemed the obvious favorite. He’s a quirky but classy late closer, with stakes wins to back him up. But the flat, fast turf of Little Everglades favors horses that set the pace and are in front coming round the turn for home. Little Hurt (Calvin McCormack) is also a classy horse but hadn’t run in an age. But for the first time the elegant bay was running from trainer Richard Valentine’s barn, so he was a sleeper with possibilities. Il Capitano (Matt McCarron), an English import now trained by Doug Fout, and the mare Feeling So Pretty (Michael Traurig) rounded out the field.

Il Capitano set the pace for most of the race, as Massey just tried to settle Raise A Storm on his heels. “The pace was very slow for the first mile or so; that didn’t suit my horse at all. He was keen, and I had to fight him a bit,” he said. “But after we turned down the backside for the last time, the pace picked up and I was able to just drift off Il Capitano’s quarters as we went round the turn for home.”

Massey knew he had Il Capitano beat as they went to the second-last fence, but then “got a little concerned” about Little Hurt, who was making his run.

“The last thing in the world I wanted was to get into a jumping battle with Little Hurt. He’s got so much scope, and when I looked over at Calvin and saw he had a double handful of rein so late in the race, I got worried,” said Massey. “But we met the last two fences well, and I was always able to keep just in front.” The pair won the 21³8-mile race by 1 length.

Trained by Kathy McKenna (nee Neilson), Raise A Storm, an Irish import, has taken some time to settle into the American way of things. He’s run inconsistently since first imported two years ago, but Massey said the horse has figured some things out and “we’ve figured him out a little better too.”

Last fall Raise A Storm ran well in the Grade 1 novice series, and his win at Little Everglades sets him up for bigger things this spring.

There’s no mystery to why it took so long for Birth Sign to break his maiden. The gelding has been running over hurdles since he was a 4-year-old, and he finally had his picture taken, three years later, when he won the maiden claiming hurdle in Florida.

“He’s just a little slow,” said jockey Danielle Hodsdon. “He tries 100 percent every time he runs, but he’s not a fast horse.”

This was the first time that Birth Sign had been dropped down into claiming com-pany, and obviously it was a relief for him to run against less-stout company than that found in the straight maiden ranks. Hods-don said “he just got a little run off his feet” in the tougher races.

“This race was a bit of a mess early on as one horse [Patriot’s Path (Diana Gillam)] hit a wing, and there were loose horses running in the race. We got off to a slow start and I was further back than I would have liked, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I avoided all the chaos,” she said.

The late start also helped Birth Sign settle into a nice rhythm, and he just kept picking off his competitors one by one. “He just worked his way through the field, and that had to give him a lot of confidence,” said Hodsdon. “He’s really one of the nicest rides I have won a race on.”

Birth Sign is such a pleasant ride that Sheppard’s barn help worried that he might be claimed. “We had heard lots of rumors about losing him–that people were going to claim him, so it was stressful for us,” said Hodsdon. “We debated all week long whether we should run him for a tag or not. He’s the barn pet and it would have been hard to lose him. He’s just a cute little horse that anyone can ride. When my mom came to visit, she rode out with us on him and galloped him!”