2024 was a successful year for the barn, eclipsing prize money earned and number of wins more than any prior year. I am so pleased with the progress that our business is making as a whole and the performance that our team is putting out. Though it was a successful year for us, it was also a difficult year in terms of tragedies suffered. So we are very much looking forward to turning the page and focusing on 2025.
We did manage to cap off 2024 with a victory at Fair Grounds for West Point Thoroughbreds and Mike Lyden’s Sunday Tiff, who broke her Maiden five days before Christmas. We also had some other notable runs towards the end of 2024. Reteko took a big step forward in a Maiden Special Weight at Fair Grounds on December 22, finally racing beautifully towards the back of the field before making a lovely move around the second turn and finishing a very good third as a colt with a bundle of promise. Moving forward, he should get better and better with age.
Past Tense checked off another big box in her career when she ran in the Pago Hop that came off the turf at Fair Grounds on December 28. As a daughter of Ghostzapper from a very good family, the fact that she got Black Type by finishing third in the Pago Hop makes her significantly more valuable for Stuart Grant and his breeding operation, where, at some point, he will hopefully breed her. Past Tense is a lovely built, tenacious filly who’s really settled into our training regimen now and seems to be thriving at Fair Grounds.
Also on December 28, I was pleased to see Griffin’s Wharf run a credible second to Captain Cook, who went on to win the Gr. 3 Withers Stakes. The son of Constitution seems to get better and better the further he goes. He did come out of the race with a fairly nasty cut on the inside of his right front leg, and therefore took a little bit of time off. He got a case of cellulitis and had to be on antibiotics for five days, but he’s back training and doing very well. We’ll point him towards a Maiden in the second half of February.
On December 29, Curbstone—who is the most wonderfully consistent and honest horse—was able to reunite with Maddy Olver. He was Maddy’s first ever winner as a jockey, and after some indifferent rides in the middle of the year, Mrs. Patricia Mosley and I decided that it was the right thing to do to let Maddy get back on him in the Queens County.
He gave an absolutely exemplary performance to finish second in the race, gaining more Black Type for that huge pedigree of Mrs. Mosley’s, and giving Maddy a wonderful spin around to finish second in a Stake behind front-running Phileas Fogg.
To round out December, Maggie and I took Grace and Willow to England for Christmas, where—for the first time—we felt they were old enough to see the sights and sounds of London. We really packed it in over our three days and two nights, catching up with numerous friends as well as going to the Tower of London to see the Crown Jewels, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, the London Eye, the Natural History Museum, and a spot of shopping at Liberty as well as some delicious lunches and dinners. It was really a very magical time for Maggie and I to be able to see the girls appreciate what a wonderful city it can be, especially leading up to Christmas.
We then moved down to the country to stay with my brother Henry, his wife NikNak, our nephew and niece Rafe and Hope, as well as their unborn sisters Vita and Martha. Christmas was spent in their farmhouse due to the fact that NikNak needed to rest in her last month of pregnancy with the twins. But what a magical time they gave us. Granny Morley was there for the four days surrounding Christmas and had all seven of her grandchildren under one roof to play with, which was absolutely wonderful.
On Christmas Day, we told the girls that—while we have not replaced our irreplaceable George—we had got ourselves another dog. Onjay joined us in the New Year when we returned home from our Christmas holidays, and it was an enormously exciting moment to welcome our new puppy into the family. We are very happy and look forward to a lifetime of enjoyment and vermin control with Onjay.
Once settled back in the U.S. after our trip, we headed up to Saratoga. Very sweetly, Kevin Snyder and Michelle Keating allowed us to stay in their house, and we took the girls skiing on West Mountain for three days. Grace and Willow had never skied before. Rather surprising environmental circumstances, it was fifty-five degrees every day. I don’t think I’ve ever been hotter on the side of a mountain than I was then.
January was marginally frustrating the majority of the month, where a lot of horses ran very well but did not win. Lots of third place finishes during the first three weeks.
Ez Roll on New Year’s Day finished third. Gabby’s Legacy—who’s a lovely McKinzie, New York-bred filly—ran third in a Maiden Special Weight when she stretched out to a mile on January 5. A Bourbon for Toby possibly proved that he will favor the grass, which is the sort of family that he comes from, when he finished third on January 3. He’s a colt I’m really looking forward to getting on the grass, so we’re going to freshen him up and point him towards that.
One Nine Hundred is an extremely fast son of Dialed In, and owned by Steven Rocco and Adelphi Racing Club. He had a rather eventful debut on January 11, where he was beaten by a head after a rough and wide trip around the turn. He came up just short under Jose Lezcano to finish third. Todo Men ran back again in another Maiden Special Weight on January 16, also finishing third in a race that came off the grass.
After two and a half weeks of thirds in January, I was beginning to scratch my head wondering where the winner’s circles were located on the Fair Grounds and Aqueduct racetracks. Luckily, when the final week rolled around, we were able to find it. Curbstone led the charge on January 25 under his great ally Madison Olver, and the two managed to win a wide-open Allowance on Saturday afternoon. Their effort was followed by Abadin winning for Rainbow’s End Racing the very next day. Both wins came at Aqueduct.
The same weekend, Creed’s Vision went down to Laurel and got what I can only describe as an absolute horror of a ride to finish third. We’ll be making a jockey change after this very disappointing performance. Rewinding to January 24, I was extremely pleased to see Houlton finish second at Aqueduct for Rainbow’s End Racing. This is a horse I think has a great deal of promise but ran first off the claim on a wet track, which he really did not enjoy. Thankfully, he was justified on January 24 with his super second place finish. He got stuck behind a wall of horses when he needed to make his run, but he made a very promising effort towards the end of the race, the events of which were nobody’s fault.
ADDED: Lastly, Patty Brown Eyes capped off the month with another win for our barn on January 31. This win came at Aqueduct going seven furlongs on the dirt and with jockey Sahin Civaci in the irons for owners Lucky Hat Racing and V Hop Racing. Her win was followed by Wake Surf running second two races down the card, which led to the gelding being claimed away from our barn after only one start with us.
It’s great to have some of the grass horses back. Donegal Momentum breezed at Fair Grounds this past weekend. Miss Bourbon, Tango Tango, Son of a Birch are all back in. Pookie’s training down at Nick Esler’s Sandhurst Thoroughbreds in Ocala. And I think, all in all, we have a solid group of three-year-olds to go to war with this year. A sprinkling of decent older horses, including Donegal Momentum, who will point towards a single run at Fair Grounds before likely going to the Maker’s Mark Mile at Keeneland.
I’ll be heading to Ocala shortly to see some of the juveniles with Nick Esler, Karl Keegan, Niall Brennan, and Kinsman Farm, all of whom have the majority of our two-year-olds.
That’s it for now. Really looking forward to the year ahead.
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