With the end of what I call the southern meetings of Fair Grounds and Florida, we saw the opening of Keeneland and the start of turf racing in New York. This is the time of year that we start to gear up for the months ahead. We’ve had a relatively quiet start to the year due to the fact that we didn’t send horses to New Orleans this winter because we want fresh horses to campaign at Belmont on the new synthetic surface this coming winter. As such, it’s been a quiet time for our turf horses, but it’s great to get them back going again.
It was very encouraging that our first turf runner of the year, A Bourbon for Toby, went to Keeneland and won an Allowance Other Than. Toby has been a slightly frustrating horse at times for me because he kept running extremely well last year without winning, finally breaking his maiden at the tenth time of asking during the back end of the turf season last year. He then had a little bit of time off through the winter and came back to make it 2-for-11 by winning an Allowance Other Than at Keeneland under a very good ride from Ricardo Santana. This is a colt that we’ve always felt would improve with age. He’s out of a Kitten’s Joy mare by Bernardini. So the older he gets, the better he should get, and hopefully Toby has a very productive year in front of him now as well.
Special mention to Victory Hall, who won the Maddie May Stakes at Aqueduct under Ricardo Santana as well, stalking pace-setting Galinda before swooping late to beat her in the shadow of the post. This very resilient, rather diminutive New York-bred filly has done nothing wrong her whole career and has given her owners some really enjoying days. She then tried the Gazelle, which was over her head, and she will now get a little bit of a freshening before running in the seven furlong three-year-old New York-bred filly stake on Belmont week up in Saratoga.
We’ve had some horses run well without winning recently and some disappointing post positions as well, which has made life quite tough for a few of these horses. But some honourable seconds from Griffin’s Wharf, Senegal, Jordan’s Love, and Turn and Count, as well as Private Desire shipping down and running second to a Illuminare at Colonial Downs in a restricted stake.
One Nine Hundred came up against a horrible racetrack with a lot of moisture in it in the Gr. 3 Tom Fool, something this horse really hates. I thought he was extremely game to finish third, beaten half a length in that race over a surface that he would have really despised, as well as ending up down on the rail, which is not the place to be at all. A couple of other stakes-placed fillies to mention: Interstatelovesong in the Busher, and Irish Fortune gained her Black Type in the Fourstar Crook.
A very fun story for StarLadies Racing, U Racing, and Titletown Racing Stables was More Champagne breaking her maiden in supremely impressive fashion at Keeneland. This filly has been a superstar since she came in. We purchased her at the OBS March Sale. She was bought by Corbin Blumberg and has done nothing wrong in the few weeks that we’ve had her at Belmont, doing everything right and impressing us both physically and mentally every single day that she trains. Still a big ask for a filly who was at the Two-Year-Olds in Training sale in March to come to Belmont and train for a month before shipping halfway across America to Kentucky, where she disposed of Wesley Ward’s odds-on favorite in ready fashion under John Velazquez. She will now point towards the Queen Mary at Royal Ascot.
The stable is looking to hit its stride now. I see a lot of positive physical changes as a lot of these horses start to turn in their coats, especially the fillies who start to really perk up this time of the year now that the cold weather is behind us. Really looking forward to the month of May. I think we’ve got some good horses to run in good races this month, and I’m really looking forward to getting a lot of these turf horses their second starts of the year moving forward.
The Kentucky Derby this year was a race of many stories, especially with the lead up to the race and the unprecedented number of scratches allowing all the also eligibles to draw in. I felt particularly bad for John Ennis’s horse Great White flipping over behind the gate and then being correctly scratched. I can’t imagine anything more heart wrenching than to get literally to the gate of the Kentucky Derby only for something like this to happen.
The race itself was a terrific, fast, furious, usual Kentucky Derby; a lot of horses went forward jostling for position the whole way around, which was very typical, but as it panned out in the end, the pace was probably too hot and the horses who were last and second-last going into the second turn ended up running 1-2. It was great to see Irad Ortiz so pleased for his brother Jose.
And most importantly, it was wonderful to see friend Cherie DeVaux win her first Kentucky Derby. I never doubted that Cherie would be fortunate enough to win the Derby. I do have to say I was surprised that this horse was the one, but first starter and she got the job done.
I thought it was a terrific race, a terrific performance by Golden Tempo and runner-up Renegade. If I had to take a horse out of the race moving forward, I thought Bill Mott’s horse, Chief Wallabee, ran unbelievably well and got into some real traffic trouble in the lane between the quarter pole and the eighth pole. I think he’s a horse who was only having his fourth lifetime start and first start with blinkers. Probably a horse to take moving forward further down the line for the three-year-old year. All around, a terrific week of racing at Churchill Downs. Really looking forward to the Preakness at Laurel this year, followed by the final Belmont at Saratoga.
Fingers crossed I have more victories to talk about at the end of May in the next blog.
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