I asked trainer Elliott Walden to describe Ipi Tombe in one word. Without hesitation, he answered, "Classy."

After her deceivingly easy half-length victory in Saturday's Grade 3 Locust Grove Handicap at Churchill Downs, casual racing observers may not be as impressed as local horsemen. Neil Howard, who trains third place finisher Quick Tip, said, "This mare I is simply magnificent. She is everything they said she was." The word I come up with is "champion."

She is an extraordinary racehorse. She was only one of 468 thoroughbreds foaled in Zimbabwe five years ago. She beat world-class males with authority in the $2 million Dubai Duty Free and toyed with four rivals on Saturday in her United States debut. She is a superstar now, but one with a wealth of enormous potential.

In the year of Funny Cide, both racing and non-racing fans have a new story to dig their teeth into. Ipi Tombe will become the queen of American racing before the summer is over.

Team Valor president Barry Irwin, who engineered the purchase of Ipi Tombe for $750,000 has as his ultimate goal the Eclipse Award for champion female on the turf. She is not nominated to the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships, and will not be supplemented because of the very high fees to become eligible. So Ipi Tombe must strut her stuff in the big turf stakes before and after that championship day in October. The Arlington Million in August, against male competition, would pretty well seal at least one Eclipse award.

Had Ipi Tombe destroyed the Locust Grove field instead of winning by just half a length, she would certainly be penalized with extra weight in her next race, The Diana Handicap at Saratoga on July 26th.

As it was, the African-bred carried six to 11 pounds more than her rivals on Saturday. True, the 2-5 shot gave the chalk lovers a bit to worry about when she broke poorly, and on the backstretch backed up a bit off a :47.81 half. But Pat "wait all" Day never touched her with his whip, and did an excellent job of getting more black type for her resume' while keeping the reserve tank untouched. Day knows what he is sitting on, and how many gears this grand mare has during a race.

What fun it will be to follow Ipi Tombe over the next several months. It's fitting that her next appearance under colors will be on the day NYRA presents its "Hats off to Saratoga" promotion, because by Eclipse time, it will be hats off to Ipi Tombe.