October has been a very good month for our barn with a lot of strong performances and stirring wins. Freudie Anne’s year and racing career came to a close on the 20th of October and I just want to say a very special Thank You to her owners who entrusted her to me after she was with Eddie Kenneally. A top class New York-bred grass filly, her form had started to tail off towards the end of the year and she will now retire to stud, hopefully to have lots of very fast babies. She has been an absolute pleasure to be around and we’ll miss her in the barn area, but are thrilled to know she will now get to enjoy her well deserved retirement.
Enasoit went down to Laurel to a turf track that he is very familiar with and won his third race there on the 6th of October. We ran him again on the 20th, but the turf came up very soft and it didn’t really favor a speed horse like him. He will now have 4-5 weeks between races; we’ll freshen him up and point him to another sprint race on the turf.
That same weekend, Valyrian also broke his maiden in Maryland and ran back 15 days later to finish fifth in a Starter Allowance at Belmont. A nice little dirt horse, he is owned by Torie Gladwell and will run in New York during the winter.
Delighted to see MMM Stables’ Keep It Up fight tooth-and-nail the length of the straight with an odds-on shot at Presque Isles. He broke his maiden and showed a lot of guts in the process. He’s a three-year-old who has improved after being gelded and seems to be going in the right direction.
Climb the Ladder ran a very good second at Belmont in a Maiden Special Weight on the 9th of October, along with a few of our other horses who are doing quite well. Roman Approval has just been an absolute star since we claimed him. He ran back in a very, very high class allowance race at Belmont having run a 97 Beyer on the 29th of September and backed it up on the 20th of October by pairing those numbers. It is very difficult for a horse to run a career best and then run it again in their next race. I am delighted with the job that my team has done with him. He’ll run once more in New York if the weather allows, as he’s a horse who has to have fast ground. We will then target some Graded Stakes races down in Texas and Louisiana this winter. Roman Approval is best at the mile and 1/8 and upwards. He has an abundance of talent and enjoys his program, and I’m looking forward to taking him down south.
A colt who is very close to my heart is a horse called Westerdale – he’s a Flat Out, from the family of Rattlesnake Bridge. He debuted the other day in a very highly touted Maiden Special Weight at Belmont and finished a very creditable third behind a horse of Chad Brown (1st) and Todd Pletcher (2nd). It was nine lengths back to the fourth runner, which tells me these three colts are in a different league from the rest of the horses in their division.
Ten Eyck ran another excellent second as did Work of Art, both at Belmont in separate Maiden Special Weight races.
Probably the most entertaining and amusing is a horse called Cooptado, who hadn’t run since Dubai World Cup night and finished third off the bench on the 15th of October. The seven-year-old Argentine-bred has been working very well on the dirt, but I couldn’t find a race for him to start off with on the surface and so he ran on turf. He’s had six races on dirt and won four of them and is also a millionaire who’s won a Grade One on grass. I put him on the grass at Keeneland and he ran an excellent third; it was great to see him back to semblance of his previous form. He is a horse who will partake in both dirt and turf races going forward, and I have to add that he is also a very cool old man to have in the barn.
We got out first ever winner at Keeneland with our fourth runner there, which was (and still is) immensely exciting. Ciaran, who is now a gelding and is owned by Donegal, joined us in the middle of the summer after not working out so well for his previous trainer. With a few weeks and a gelding operation, he seems to have turned a real corner. His dam was an extremely good two turn grass filly, but this horse is also very good on the dirt. We sent him to Keeneland hoping to win with him first time out and he did the job very nicely, winning by four lengths, going away. I haven’t been particularly hard on him as I expected him to improve dramatically for the run. The son of Malibu Moon will probably point towards the Future Stars Night at Churchill Downs going a mile for two-year-olds, and if he’s good enough to win, or is very close, will probably continue to the Fair Grounds for the Triple Crown Trail.
It was nice to finally get Danny California a star, though it was not under the circumstances I wanted. The son of Afleet Alex is owned by Chris Larsen and West Point Thoroughbreds and had to sprint on debut on the 15th of October, finishing fifth. Fourteen lengths behind at the quarter-pole, he was beaten just under four lengths, which tells me the amount of ground he was making up on the lane. I’m looking forward to getting him a race going a mile on the 15th of November at Aqueduct.
Miss Devine, who is a daughter of Congrats, debuted on Friday the 27th at Keeneland. Though she finished eighth, she is an extremely nice filly in the making who will only get better with time.
I must not forget La Moneda… a big Thank You to Brendan Walsh and Patricia Moseley for leaving this filly with me. The daughter of Freud broke her maiden very impressively at Belmont after having had a bit of an unlucky debut at Saratoga. Brendan doesn’t normally maintain a New York string, but nonetheless left her in my care. She is a very professional and talented filly and will stay in New York for one more run before heading back to Brendan for the winter months. Laminator is a lovely filly who I anticipate will do big things in the future.
Off the track, Maggie and I geared up to watch Nick Esler and Elizabeth Sabatino get married. The wedding festivities started with a big dinner in the city and later the ceremony in Connecticut. Congratulations to the newlyweds!
That’s about all I have to talk about for now. If anyone needs me, I’ll be practicing my reading.
Photo: Freudie Anne enjoying retirement (photo courtesy of Fergus Galvin)
