Saratoga is a results business, and while we had a wonderful day on the 29th of August, we had a pretty miserable meet in terms of finding our way to the winner’s circle. It was incredibly tough on all of us involved in the barn though, because it wasn’t that we had horses in the wrong races. It wasn’t that the horses were unhealthy. We simply had a really rough time. In terms of racing luck and photo finishes, it was just a case of horses running unbelievably well all the way through the meet and us ending up with simply four winners, seven seconds, six thirds, and a couple of photo finishes. That could easily have been six winners at the meet with a couple of changes in racing luck. And so, take nothing away from the team and the barn as a whole and take nothing away from the horses.
We just did not get a huge amount of luck up in Saratoga this year, and you need a lot of luck to do well. It’s the most competitive meet in North American racing. Where the best of the best come to try themselves against each other in a wonderful atmosphere throughout the meet. A huge thank you to our fans in Saratoga for making it as special as always.
There were some very special performances for me personally. Watching Thorpedo Anna come back and win the Personal Ensign in the fashion that she did was one of them. It may not have been her most stellar performance but really brought a tear to my eye. If you’re a racing fan, watching her come back and prove that at the very highest of levels, she’s still every bit as good as she used to be, moves you.
Another performance that stood out: Big shout out to Book’em Danno, who has turned into one of the most epic horse racing stories that there is out there. For him to win back-to-back Grade Ones on Belmont Day and on Travers Day in Saratoga was very cool as well. Congratulations to the whole Derek Ryan team and his loyal band of very vocal owners from New Jersey.
These are the sorts of stories that keep racing going. It’s all well and good watching the powerhouse stables and owners with very expensive horses win the big races, but when Thorpedo Anna and Book’em Danno go do what they did on Travers Day, it means that we all still have a chance of competing at that level if we’re lucky enough to spot those caliber of horses.
Some special mentions for horses in our barn that ran unbelievably well. It was great to see Lawyer Mason break his maiden by a head at Saratoga on August 8. This colt is named after West Paces Racing founding member Keith Mason, who has been a long-time supporter of our barn. Wicked Improbable, Valentine Gift, Pazz The Soy Sauce, and Reteko all ran third. A Bourbon for Toby remains a very unlucky maiden, finishing second again on August 28. The same afternoon Twenty Four Mamba got beaten in the very tightest of photos for Flying P Stable. I went home and said to Maggie that I wasn’t quite sure why I expected anything different from the meet, but the following afternoon was just one of those rather magical days that don’t happen very often in racing.
To have Donegal Momentum come back and win the Bernard Baruch under an absolutely phenomenal ride by Irad Ortiz was a real testament to the quality of care and attention that our horses get in our barn. Donegal Momentum came out of his stumble in the Kelso with a pretty badly pulled hamstring. And so, huge kudos to the team at Belmont, and Axelle Solares and her husband William, who rides him every day.
We brought Donegal Momentum home. We rehabbed the hamstring. We got him back into a lovely breeze pattern. We felt that the last three weeks leading up to the Bernard Baruch, he was in as good a form as we could have asked. But after a mishap like he encountered in the Kelso, there’s always a nagging question mark about what will happen when a horse is put under the duress of racing again.
To watch him hold off Program Trading, a three-time Grade One winner, and win the Baruch was a huge feather in the cap of my operation. It’s not about me, it’s about my team. And if ever there was an example of that, this horse, and getting him back in that sort of form is a huge accolade to them.
The same afternoon was made even more special though because, sadly, last year in November, as we all know, John Attfield sadly died, leaving a huge hole in our hearts and a huge hole in our shed row. John was an integral part of our team and he was an integral part of Donegal Momentum’s career. He had him down at Fair Grounds when he came in to our operation. He helped develop the horse and absolutely adored him; the way he worked, the way he moved. He was just a huge part of Donegal Momentum’s early days. He was also incredibly proud to lead him in when he won the Gio Ponti last year at Aqueduct. I have a wonderful photo of John wearing his Donegal green shirt and yellow trousers to match their racing silks while we were in England at Tattersalls. It sits very proudly in my office and so to lose John was an absolute heartbreak.
Bob Scavetta of Rainbow’s End Racing and Larry Connolly of West Paces Racing deserve a huge amount of credit for being sweet enough to name a colt after John, and naming him simply Attfield. Attfield would’ve been one of John’s favorite horses in the barn because he adored a horse that screamed when the feed cart was around. Attfield the horse is most vociferous about his feed time. He tells all fifty horses as soon as that feed cart starts to move at the top of his voice, and John would’ve really appreciated that.
Attfield debuted an hour and a half after Donegal Momentum had won the Bernard Baruch and the fairytale continued as the fastest horse in the world—Wesley Ward’s Schwarzenegger—went off at odds of two to five, which made my instructions to Dylan Davis in the paddock a lot easier. I told him simply our horse, Attfield, is a very nice horse who will run very well, but don’t get any illusions about beating what is tipped to be the fastest horse in the world. Don’t worry about Schwarzenegger, just worry about giving Attfield a good education. Make sure he finishes the race well, and we’ll worry about winning next time.
But Schwarzenegger got awful leg weary in the last hundred yards, and Attfield is a good horse who proved it on debut by running down Schwarzenegger and winning by a neck. Talking about this brings tears to my eyes a little because, for both colts to win on the same afternoon in Saratoga would’ve meant so much to John. The tears in the winner’s circle after Attfield won were many, many people deep. It was not just our team that was very emotional, but Schwarzenegger’s groom worked for John when they were at Kelly Breen’s together, and he and Maggie had a long hug in the winner’s circle.
John was known for his bright orange suit, so it was rather apt that Attfield wore the number seven saddle towel that day and Schwarzenegger’s groom actually wore his orange t-shirt to the paddock in honor of John. So, just a really cool afternoon and a lovely way to end the meet after a number of really solid efforts from our horses. It was a gratifying afternoon after what had been a really long, tough two and a half months in Saratoga.
We aren’t afforded much time after Saratoga before the annual draft of horses for next year begins and we head off to the Keeneland Yearling Sale. We spend five days on Long Island, unpack the car, do the laundry, put the kids back in school, and then I head off down to Kentucky for the sale of 4,000 yearlings at the biggest yearling sale in the world.
This year we were very fortunate but had to work extra hard to get our purchases made through the sale. The new tax laws introduced in the economy means that buying racehorses is a very attractive proposition in terms of tax write-offs. As such, the market this year has been unbelievably competitive and, as we saw by the end of book two, fifty-three horses had been sold for over a million dollars with a clearance rate of 17% RNA—numbers that we had never seen before. The previous record was in 2005 when forty yearlings made over a million dollars. This year’s sale ended up with a total of fifty-eight yearlings making over a million dollars.
We have a very thorough process at the sales. Nick Esler of Sandhurst Thoroughbreds, but in particular, Conor Foley and Jim Hatchett of Oracle Bloodstock, do absolutely sterling work of providing me with short lists for the entire sale, which is enormously helpful in keeping me efficient with so much going on.
I want to give an enormous thank you to all of our clients who dipped deep into their pockets and purchased some really nice horses through the first four books at Keeneland. I came home absolutely bedraggled, having covered the guts of a quarter million steps through the ten days that I was there.
Now back in the barn, we’ve got a very important two weeks coming up with horses such as Donegal Momentum heading to the Coolmore Mile, Attfield heading to the Futurity, Griffin’s Wharf running in the Artie Schiller, some very nice maidens, as well as A Bourbon for Toby potentially running in the Jockey Club Derby.
It’ll be exciting to see Glavine make his second start and some of the two-year-old fillies who I like a lot, such as Copper Caduceus, Italianne, and Valiant Diva making their career debuts. It’s nice to get home and get back to what I’m actually paid to do, which is train racehorses. I will, however, be stepping out this week to head over to England for the Tattersalls Yearling Sale.
We will be working book one very carefully with a view to add to the horses we purchased at the same sale last year. Those two horses are in training in Lambourne at the moment with my great friend Ed Walker. Euston Hall is getting close to debuting, and Georgia Snow—having had a minor hiccup in the summer—will be starting to get along and looking towards making a start this winter. Hopefully both horses make their way across the Atlantic next year and the model will be very similar this year.
I’m now out of breath and out of time.
