Winner's Circle : winner's circle

Rebuilding Her Empire - by Esther Marr

MArszman — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 13:04:00 GMT

(Originally published in the August 18, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

Breeder Diane "Dede" Snowden attended the Aug. 6-7 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale with one specific purpose: to watch her flashy Empire Maker colt bring big money.

Snowden, who had scaled back her involvement in the Thoroughbred business considerably in recent years due to the poor economy, had high hopes for the colt as her possible ticket to a full force re-entry back into the game.

Plenty of buzz had surrounded the Empire Maker yearling, a full brother to grade I winner Mushka, so Snowden went in with great expectations. She wasn't disappointed.

The Empire Maker colt became the second seven-figure yearling of the opening session, bringing a final bid of $1.1 million from Stone-street Stables' Barbara Banke and George Bolton. The colt was consigned by Craig and Holly Bandoroff's Denali Stud, where Snowden keeps her mares.

"I thought the price was very good considering the sale," said Snowden. "The big buyers were there and the horse was a close-to-perfect physical with a great attitude. Craig Bandoroff does a wonderful job...he's got a great team to get them looking shined up and perfect."

Snowden said the son of Empire Maker was tall with above average weight as a foal.

"He had a very good temperament," she said. "He was always well-behaved, good-minded, and smart. He had good horse sense. A lot of them don't. He was just a pretty sensible guy that Craig brought on even further."

The colt is out of the stakes-winning Seeking the Gold mare Sluice, who is one of just two members left in Snowden's broodmare band. Since Mushka, who sold for $1.6 million as a yearling and later for $2.4 million as a broodmare prospect, Sluice has yet to produce another offspring that would accomplish anything significant on the racetrack.

"You can't go into this business without understanding the ups and the downs," said Snowden. "There are extreme highs and extreme lows. Fortunately we've had more on the high end, but I think that a lot of people think it's easy to jump into the business and be successful. It's quite the opposite, really."

Mushka retired from racing a millionaire. She won the 2009 Juddmonte Spinster Stakes (gr. I) and Glens Falls Handicap (gr. IIIT) at 4, plus the 2007 Demoiselle Stakes (gr. II) as a juvenile. She was the first grade I winner for Snowden as a breeder, who alone or in partnership has also campaigned grade III winner El Amante, plus stakes winners Solar Bound and Stormy West, and Peekskill, who ran third in the 2002 Florida Derby (gr. I).

Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott trained Mushka and is the main conditioner at the racetrack for Dede and her husband, Guy.

"It's indescribable (watching a horse like Mushka win)," said Snowden of the mare, who was raced initially by Zayat Stables and later by Brushwood Stable. "You're just so proud and feel such a part of it. Mushka was a beautiful girl, and we've gotten a lot of pleasure out of all of them--whether we race them or someone else does."

While Guy is supportive of her Thoroughbred endeavors, he lets her run the business as he focuses on some private investments. Guy used to race a few horses on his own in the early 1990s, including stakes winners Departing Cloud, Fashion Maven, and Premier Mombo.

In addition to breeding Thoroughbreds, the Snowdens own Falls Creek Farm, a Quarter Horse breeding, training, and showing center near Oneco, Conn. The farm is managed by Dede's brother, Mark Pailthorpe. The Snowdens' daughter, Stephanie, is a nationally known show horse rider.

Dede Snowden, who is now looking to rebuild her broodmare band, also wants to purchase a few more horses in training. One of her two current runners, a juvenile Street Sense filly named Sensationalize, out of Stormy West, ran fourth in her debut at Saratoga the same day Snowden's Empire Maker colt sold.

"My husband has always made me treat (the Thoroughbred industry) like a business," she added. "It's hard because I'm a very emotional person and I, of course, want to keep them all. But you just can't do it.

"You need to have a fabulous team to get it all coordinated, and the right people to put you on the right track. We've got all that with Craig and Bill, we have (trainer) Eddie Woods, and Frank Smith in South Carolina. It's a great, great team. I have to give them a lot of credit."

When asked what had kept her in the business so long, Snowden's reply was simple: "The love of the animal itself. Horses have always been my obsession, and I don't think I could live without them. I always wanted to be a part of it.

"I talked my husband into coming to Keeneland with me in September (for the yearling sale), so, hopefully, we'll find that perfect filly there and do the same thing all over again."

Special K - by Tom LaMarra

aspradling — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 12:54:00 GMT

(Originally published in the August 11, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

If there was a horse-for-the-course in the $200,000 Pennsylvania Governor’s Cup Handicap July 28 at Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course, it was Kyma, a 4-year-old Belong to Me gelding appropriately bred in Pennsylvania that was two-for-two on the local turf course.

It didn’t hurt that Kyma’s trainer, Brandon Kulp, showed 10 wins, 12 seconds, and five thirds in 49 starts this season at Penn National, his home base.

Add the fact Kulp is from nearby Palmyra, and the gelding’s owner and co-breeder, Tom McClay, is another native who lives not far away in Hummelstown, and you had the makings of a really nice tale—one that became reality when Kyma, ridden by Dana Whitney, won the Governor’s Cup at 34-1 and had the locals howling on the track apron.

It was the first stakes win for Kulp, a 27-year-old who got his trainer’s license locally in 2006 and through Aug. 1 had won 161 races, good for a win clip of 22%. And it was a big one for a young trainer with only four previous starts in stakes.

“I’m speechless,” Kulp said after the race. “People said he didn’t have a chance (numbers-wise), but they don’t know this horse’s heart. He’s kind of lazy during training, but he’s very intelligent when you put him in a race.”

McClay, a member of the Pennsylvania Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association board of directors, was on vacation in New Jersey—“When you make them, you have to take them”—and ended up watching the Governor’s Cup on his computer. He said Kyma didn’t look strong in the speed-figure department, but was lightly raced and obviously improving.

“He has no issues at all, and a healthy horse is everything,” said McClay, who breeds 25-30 horses a year. “I think he’s an awfully good horse that has been able to run up to the competition he faces.”

McClay said when he first gave horses to Kulp, the trainer was willing to listen to his owner’s thoughts on training. McClay said Kulp is open to suggestions, something that is hard to find with many trainers.

“He’s a very good trainer,” McClay said. “He’s a young guy starting out, and I’m very happy for him. To get that kind of publicity (winning Penn National’s marquee race) is big for him.”

The Governor’s Cup at five furlongs on the grass attracted a solid field, including 16-time winner Ben’s Cat, winner of Parx Racing’s Turf Monster Handicap (gr. IIIT) last year. Ben’s Cat found himself on the lead through a contested pace in the Governor’s Cup and finished a close fourth.

Kyma was ninth of 10 through fractions of :22.03 and :45.23, raced wide on the far turn, and circled foes to get up by a neck over 22-1 Car Thief and 10-1 Super Chunky. The final time on a firm course was :56.58.

Kulp’s father, Dick Kulp, was in tears when his son accepted the trophy in the winner’s circle. Dick Kulp and his wife, Laurel, earlier had horses with trainer Flint Stites, and then with their son when he got his trainer’s license.

Dick Kulp said other local owners such as Jim Kinsey, Tom Zapf, and Matt Groff gradually provided his son with horses to train.

“He just took off from there,” the proud father said. “They all gave him a shot. This is huge for him. Brandon has been around horses since he was 14, and this is what he has wanted to do since that time.”

Kulp thus far has trained mostly claiming horses. In 2007 he had 62 starters and 27 victories for a 44% win rate. Twenty-four of the wins came in claiming races.

Records the last few years indicate a gradual shift in stock for Kulp, with more starts in maiden and allowance races. Kyma, however, has been the best one thus far for Kulp, who called the upset “unbelievable.”

It appears the Turf Monster Sept. 3 is next for Kyma, who has been trained by Kulp since his victorious career debut June 28, 2011, at Penn National. The trainer said Kyma has told him what he wants to do—run short on the turf.

“We ran him long a couple of times, but he’s definitely a sprinter,” Kulp said of Kyma, who bucked shins as a 2-year-old but has been fine since. “He’s a very smart horse, and you can see how he kicks in. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”

An App for Winning - by Eric Mitchell

aspradling — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:32:00 GMT

(Originally published in the August 4, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

By Eric Mitchell

Racing fans who stuck around for the last race at Saratoga July 21 witnessed a miracle.

At a glance the race appeared to be an ordinary 51⁄2-furlong $25,000 maiden claiming race for 3-year-olds and up on the grass. In the field, however, was Cozy App, a 3-year-old filly who a year ago was at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center battling for her life. Because she had been getting the best veterinary care available, her chances of surviving a severe case of fibrinous pleuropneumonia were decent, but the chances of her recovering well enough to resume training—let alone become a winner—were slim to none.

And yet, here she was at Saratoga, rounding the turn in her eighth start since Feb. 26, chasing down the leaders, and hitting the wire in front by a length.

“She is a remarkable filly,” said Dr. Michelle Abraham, a native of Australia who treated Cozy App at New Bolton. “The ones who pull through and get back into racing condition are rare.”

Cozy App is co-owned by Sharon Biamonte and Peregrination Farm, which is owned by Phyllis Sallusto, wife of the filly’s trainer Justin Sallusto. Bred in New York by Dr. Frank Ariosta and Peggy Ariosta, the daughter of Aptitude had been purchased by Biamonte for $9,500 at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall yearling sale. Biamonte then sold part of the horse to her long-time partners, the Sallustos.

The filly first became sick in late June 2011. Despite initial treatments with antibiotics, her health spiraled downward quickly. Some tough decisions had to be made.

“I’ve never seen one with this survive,” said Justin Sallusto, who has had a trainer’s license since 1981. “Usually they die within the first couple of weeks.”

No one would have faulted the owners had they cut their losses and had the filly euthanized. She was facing months of expensive treatment and rehabilitation, a high risk of developing laminitis, and the likelihood she would never become any sort of athlete, even if she survived.

“Many horses with this will just go down, but she refused and would not go down,” Sallusto said. “I thought, ‘If she’s willing to fight, then I’m going to fight.’ Even if she didn’t make it as a racehorse, I thought she deserved to live.”

Abraham is serving her residency in internal medicine at New Bolton. She got Cozy App’s case because she was on duty when the filly was brought in. Cozy App had a severe bacterial infection and a lot of fluid in her lungs.

“There is a lot of pain associated with this disease,” Abraham said. “She had complications with a lot of lung abscesses. She lost a lot of lung tissue.”

Sometimes the treatment for this disease is as scary as the illness, according to Abraham. She eventually had to cut a 20 centimeter hole between a couple of ribs and insert tubes to flush out abscesses that had filled up the front half of one lung and allow fluid to drain.

“There is a more radical procedure that involves removing a rib so you can clean the area out, but once you do that, they can never race,” Abraham said.

The New Bolton vet said the filly’s tough mental attitude and the tremendous support she got from New Bolton’s pain management specialists contributed to Cozy App’s recovery.

“She was determined and could deal with a certain amount of discomfort,” Abraham said. “Some of the racehorses can be a handful. They are fit and then they get stuck in a stall. Some of them start to feel so rotten they may choose not to eat. She was very expressive, and we learned quickly what she liked and what she didn’t. She also seemed to understand that what we were doing was being done to help her.”

After a couple of months at New Bolton, Cozy App started gaining weight and her attitude brightened. She was shipped to Stockland Farm near the Sallustos’ home in Colts Neck, N.J., to finish her recovery. Angel Rosa, who works for Sallusto, took over the job of treating Cozy App around the clock, continuing the antibiotics and flushing out her abscesses. Being on the farm where she could be outside and grazing, the filly thrived, and by November the young warrior was back in training.

“You have to give the owners a lot of credit,” said Dr. Keith Evringham, who is Sallusto’s vet. “They were willing to give her the best treatment at tremendous expense.”

In all, Sallusto estimated they spent $30,000 on Cozy App’s treatment, but said it was money well spent.

“She has never shown any effects from the illness,” Sallusto said. “She showed me as we trained that she could do more. I’m telling you, from where she was, how sick she was, to that race at Saratoga, we saw a miracle.”

Vaccarezza's Victor - by Esther Marr

aspradling — Tue, 22 May 2012 14:38:00 GMT

(Originally published in the May 26, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

by Esther Marr

In the early 1970s, about 10 years after Carlo Vaccarezza had immigrated to the United States from his native Genoa, Italy, he found himself walking hots and serving as a groom at Aqueduct during the New York racetrack’s frigid winter meet.

“I always had love for the horse…I didn’t know a lot about racing back then, but I loved the animal,” said Vaccarezza, who never dreamed how far that love would someday carry him.

More than three decades later Vaccarezza’s horse racing fantasies became a reality when his 5-year-old homebred gelding Little Mike captured the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic Stakes (gr. IT) before a crowd of more than 165,000 on Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) day at Churchill Downs.

“I pinched myself (when he won),” said Vaccarezza of the gelding, who is the second stakes winner produced by Vaccarezza’s only mare, Hay Jude (by Wavering Monarch). “(The Woodford Reserve) was one of the best fields and one of the toughest races to handicap on the entire card. He just took the lead and you never saw him again.

“When you win a grade I in front of 165,000 people at Churchill and millions of other people watching the race on TV, it’s a huge accomplishment,” he added. “And then to do it in the race before the Derby, that’s huge.”

Vaccarezza, a veteran restaurateur who co-owns the Italian eatery Frank and Dino’s in Deerfield Beach, Fla., has raced a handful of successful horses over the years, including stakes winners Little Nick (Little Mike’s half brother) and the filly My Due Process.

But none have come close to the thrill of campaigning Little Mike, who is named after Vaccarezza’s son. The gelding’s ability to overcome humble beginnings and considerable adversity in his four years on the racetrack made his most recent feat even more remarkable.

One of Vaccarezza’s philosophies is to practice frugality when purchasing horses and choosing matings. It cost him just $5,000 to cross Hay Jude with little-known stallion Spanish Steps, which resulted in the Woodford Reserve winner.

“If there was a GQ Magazine for horses, Spanish Steps would be on the front page,” said Vaccarezza. “He’s one of the better-looking horses I ever saw in my life, and he’s a full brother to Unbridled’s Song, so he caught my attention.”

Trained by Dale Romans and campaigned in the name of Vaccarezza’s wife, Priscilla, Little Mike pulled off an impressive feat when he won the 2011 Ft. Lauderdale, Canadian Turf, and Emirates Airline Appleton stakes (all gr. IIIT) in the same meet at Gulfstream Park.

In the midst of training for that year’s Woodford Reserve, however, it was discovered Little Mike had sustained a condylar fracture to his shin.

But it didn’t take long for the gelding to return to his old form. To Vaccarezza’s amazement, Little Mike won his first start back after surgery and an eight-month layoff— an allowance/optional claiming race at Gulfstream Park against a deep field in his typical wire-to-wire fashion.

Leading up to the Woodford Reserve, Little Mike also captured the Jan. 28 Florida Sunshine Millions Turf Stakes and ran fourth, beaten just 11⁄2 lengths in the March 3 Canadian Turf.

“Little Mike has both speed and endurance,” said Romans. “If anybody runs with him, they can’t out-finish him, and if they let him go, they can’t catch him. So he’s a rare horse.”

While staying active in the racing scene, Vaccarezza also previously operated Break of Dawn Farm near Ocala, which in the mid 1990s was one of the only training centers in the area with a swimming pool. Vaccarezza, whose major customers included the late George Steinbrenner, has since sold the facility.

Vaccarezza’s other former restaurant establishments included Rusty’s (co-owned with baseball great Rusty Staub) in New York City and Mickey’s (co-owned with actor Mickey Rourke) in Miami.

In spite of Vaccarezza’s recent success with Little Mike’s dam Hay Jude, who was bred to Paddy O’Prado for 2013, the food enthusiast is not interested in delving deeper into the breeding industry.

Instead, Vaccarezza will continue developing his nine-horse racing stable, all of which are in Romans’ care, and occasionally sell runners that are no longer profitable.

Lucky for Little Mike, whose long-term goals this year include a trip to the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, he doesn’t fall into that category.

“It’s a blue-collar story,” said Vaccarezza. “It shows that everybody can be in the game.”
Added Romans, who has been training for Vaccarezza for longer than he can remember: “I don’t know what (Vaccarezza’s) secret is, but it’s working.

“He’s a knowledgeable horseman, he knows what he’s talking about, and he comes up with good horses. We never argue about anything; we discuss issues, set a game plan, and put it to work.”

Super Man: Raymond 'Butch' Lehr - by Lenny Shulman

aspradling — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:39:00 GMT

(Originally published in the May 12, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

It’s a pretty good indication that a job is special when only three people have held it over the past 100 years. Raymond “Butch” Lehr, the third track superintendent in the history of Churchill Downs, will retire at the end of the current meeting July 1, taking 45 years of experience and memories with him.

“It’s been an honor,” said Lehr, standing outside in front of his office near Gate 5 of the famed Louisville racetrack. Lehr brought some pedigree with him, his uncle Charlie Voneye having lived in a house near Barn 3 while serving as assistant track super. Lehr began on the maintenance crew at Churchill right out of high school and returned after two years in the military to work on the track crew before being tapped to assist Thurman Pangburn, his predecessor. Lehr succeeded Pangburn in 1982 and has held the top job ever since, something in which he justifiably takes a lot of pride.

“There’s not a vice president here that can say they started out here at $57.83 a week like I did,” said the personable Lehr with a smile.
Lehr has bridged a time period that increasingly has seen technology and shared information play greater roles in racetrack maintenance and safety, and he has been a willing participant in gathering as much knowledge as possible.

  “Since the beginning I’ve traveled to other racetracks to see what they do and have gone to seminars, and I’ve tried to bring in new things I’ve learned,” he stated. “There is still no book that you can open up and say, ‘This is the way a racetrack should be built.’ I’ve compiled as much information on injuries and patterns that develop; I’ve been a stickler on keeping that info. And then it finally happened here where we had the high-profile breakdown of Eight Belles. It’s a side of the business no one wants to see, but I’ve been working closely with the Safety and Integrity Alliance gathering scientific data. We’re all working toward a standard, but until we’re able to put a roof over these tracks, we’re not likely to see it because weather plays such a big part in maintaining the track and what we do. People don’t always understand that. Even all-weather tracks are all-weather only until it’s too hot or too cold.”

Working at Churchill Downs means you’re associated with the Kentucky Derby (gr. I) more than anything else, and Lehr, 63, is no exception. He noted his greatest Derby memory came when he was working on the maintenance crew in 1973 when Secretariat shattered the Derby record.

“He was a phenomenon,” Lehr stated. “That certainly was a memorable one. As a caretaker of the track, I’ve seen a lot of race records broken, but Secretariat’s is still standing here. Zenyatta running in the Breeders’ Cup was another great day; it kind of took the place of Personal Ensign beating Winning Colors in the Breeders’ Cup in 1988. I was pulling for the Derby winner and she just about got there, but hats off to Personal Ensign. That was before we had lights here, but we had night racing that day,” Lehr said, referring to the Classic (gr. I) being run in the throes of dusk.

For a pure test of his crew’s skills, though, Lehr points to Smarty Jones’ Kentucky Derby of 2004, when a monsoon hit on race day and four inches of rain fell.

“That was no doubt our biggest nightmare,” Lehr said. “The grandstand was under construction at the time, and they lost two truckloads of concrete, which is why water came flooding out of the grandstand like it was whitewater rafting coming across the track. It took out some of the surface and we had to go in manually and put it back. People thought we were going to have to cancel the Derby. That was one where you think about going to your car and heading off into the sunset, but we stuck with it.”

Nature’s storms are bad enough, but Lehr has also had to deal annually with human eruptions as well, particularly from trainers and owners who seek to blame the track for their horses’ less-than-optimal performances in the sport’s biggest race. It is an annual rite that complaints are heard that the racing surface is ‘souped up’ on Derby Day; harder; cuppier; different than the way it’s been for training sessions leading up to the big day. Lehr has heard it all.

“That’s why I’m on four different kinds of heart-pressure medication,” he said. “I’ve never rolled up a track and put another one down overnight. But I’ve been accused of everything. It’s just part of the job that you’re gonna be criticized. The best horses in the world are here that day; it’s all stakes races and they’re gonna run faster. Plus, the weather plays a big part. When it gets hot and humid, I’ve seen this track play a full second faster just because of the humidity.”

Lehr plans to make good winter use of a home he’s purchased in Florida and also spend more time with his three grandchildren while keeping his hand in as a consultant.

“Because of my schedule I wasn’t around so much with my kids, but I’ll be around to spoil the grandkids,” he said.

Grade I Groupies: William and Fred Bradley - by Evan Hammonds

aspradling — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:25:00 GMT

(Originally published in the April 21, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

By Evan Hammonds

The Bradley clan is back in grade I company. That would be the father-son team of Fred and William “Buff” Bradley, breeders and owners of Groupie Doll, the runaway winner of Keeneland’s Vinery Madison Stakes (gr. I) April 12.

Buff, who has been training since taking out a license in 1993, runs the Bradley Racing Stable. His wife, Kim, runs the daily operations at the family farm near Frankfort, Ky. It’s about as mom-and-pop as it gets.

They had grade I success with their star gelding Brass Hat in 2006 and returned to grade I company this time at their hometown track in Lexington.

A 4-year-old filly by Bowman’s Band—Deputy Doll, by Silver Deputy, Groupie Doll won the Gardenia Stakes (gr. III) at Ellis Park last summer and ran second, beaten a head, in Keeneland’s Lexus Raven Run Stakes (gr. II). She wasn’t coddled while wintering with Buff at Gulfstream Park this winter.

In her 2012 debut she was pitched in against males in a one-mile allowance/optional claimer where she ran second, beaten less than a length by the very good Boys At Tosconova. She then ran third in both the Sabin Stakes (gr. III) and Inside Information Stakes (gr. II).

“Every race she ran in was tough, and she did really well down there,” Buff said of Groupie Doll’s winter campaign. “When facing the boys…we knew she belonged with those kind. She’s that kind of racehorse. In a few of her races I don’t think she was as forwardly placed early in the race as we’d like. We thought if we could get her a little closer, then she’d be right there when it was time to kick in. That’s just how it worked out the other day.”

The “other day” was a three-length romp over seven furlongs of Polytrack in 1:23.76.

Groupie Doll races for the family along with longtime associates Carl Hurst and Brent Burns.

“Carl’s been with us for 35 years,” Bradley said. “We had the opportunity to let him buy in so we could get a little capital and also enjoy it with him. Carl and Brent have let us do what we need to do to get to where we are. We’ve bred a lot of mares together, and besides being horse business partners, they’re very good friends.”

Another favorite friend and family member is Brass Hat, the Bradleys’ game homebred who earned quite a following while stringing together a 10-8-5 career mark from 40 starts and pocketing more than $2.1 million in a seven-year campaign. He won or placed in 14 graded stakes and won the Donn Handicap (gr. I) in 2006.

“Brass Hat really put us on the map, and he still has a big following. People came to see him at the farm this weekend,” Bradley said. “I think we, my father and I, both understood how special he was and that was good because we got to enjoy racing him and campaigning him for as long as he did. We knew he was special to a lot of people.

“You get geldings like that that are hard-knocking and are around for awhile and people begin to recognize the name at that point. That’s very good for our business to be able to follow a horse like that for years. He was tough; he was tough every time he ran.”

These days Brass Hat is not so tough. But like just any other family member, the 11-year-old son of Prized has a job to do on the farm.
“He’s part of the family, and he’ll always have a job,” Bradley said. “We always knew he’d take care of the babies; for years when I would send him home for a week or two, we always put him with his little miniature pony buddy.

“Now he’s turned out with the (male) yearlings,” Bradley continued. “He is so kind to them; he kind of watches over them. He’s great in the job he’s in right now. He’s got one colt that likes to play with him and chew on his halter and the colt grabs onto the halter and Brass swings him around on it. Brass just takes it. He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.”

As for Groupie Doll, she’ll get another chance to shine near her Old Kentucky Home, most likely on Derby day in the Humana Distaff (gr. I). After that, she might get a little break back at the farm.

“She had a strong winter campaign down at Gulfstream,” Bradley said. “At this time we’re thinking we’re going to give her a little time off after the next race and freshen her up a little bit.”

There’s nothing like spending a little more time back home.

Stepping Up: Lynne Boutte - by Dede Biles

aspradling — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:36:00 GMT

(Originally published in the April 14, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

By Deirdre B. Biles

Lynne Boutte is known in the juvenile auction community as a seller of mostly blue-collar horses, and she likes her status. Even though the 2-year-olds with fancy pedigrees and brilliant works usually are in the barns of other consignors, she doesn’t mind.

“I’ll tell you what, that’s a lot of pressure,” said Boutte of dealing regularly with top-end auction horses. “God bless the people who do it all the time. I’m very comfortable at the level I sell at.”

But recently, thanks to former Calvin Klein CEO Barry Schwartz, Boutte got the opportunity to join the sale ring’s aristocracy.

“Boy, I own a lot of horses,” Schwartz told Boutte late in 2011. She and her husband, Chris, were breaking and training more than 20 of the fashion mogul’s young Thoroughbreds at their 35-acre Eagle’s View Farm, which is located in The Gallops equine complex near Reddick, Fla.

“We discussed different things,” Boutte remembered, “and then we settled on the idea that it might be a good year to go to the sales, so we picked a couple of strong, precocious colts to sell.”

Both their choices ended up in the Fasig-Tipton Florida select juvenile auction. The Johannesburg—Sans Souci Island colt brought $60,000 when he was sold privately after being bought back. However, the Distorted Humor—Secret Thyme colt named Price Is Truth made much more of an impact. He commanded $1.2 million, becoming the auction’s second-highest-priced horse.

“It was so exciting,” Boutte said a week after the March 26 sale. “A lot of times when you go to a sale, there are excuses when a horse doesn’t show himself well or whatever. But when everything comes together, it reminds you why you love what you do. It just makes you feel good.”

David Loder, representing Sheikh Mohammed’s bloodstock manager John Ferguson, signed the sale ticket for the handsome chestnut juvenile, which Schwartz had purchased for $180,000 at the 2011 Keeneland September yearling sale.

“I’ve trained a lot of horses over the years and certain ones just seem to have an aura about them; he had that aura,” Boutte said.

During the Fasig-Tipton Florida auction’s under tack show, Price Is Truth worked an eighth of a mile in :101⁄5.

“His breeze was phenomenal,” Boutte said. “It was like he was saying, ‘Y’all look at me!’ He has a way of just dropping down, throwing those legs out, and covering so much ground. You could see that he was enjoying it.”

Price Is Truth is the most expensive horse ever sold by Boutte, a 51-year-old native of New York.

“My elementary school was in Floral Park near Belmont Park,” she said. “My friends and I would sneak onto the backside by crawling over or under a big, tall fence. We would try to get near the horses, but we got run out most of the time.”

When she was in high school, Boutte worked as a hotwalker for trainer Mary Cotter and she also showed horses. After trying college for a year, Boutte decided she would rather be at the racetrack and got a job as a groom.

“Back then the backside was a very difficult place for a young woman to be,” Boutte said. “I have a lot of respect for the women who carved out the way for us, but I wasn’t worldly or experienced enough horse-wise to be confident enough to stay at the racetrack at that time. I heard there were horses in Ocala, Fla., so I got in my car and headed South.”

Boutte found jobs at Irish Acres Farm and Tartan Farms. To get started in the auction business, she hocked her yellow Chevy Camaro. The money from the car funded the purchase of two weanling colts that she resold as 2-year-olds.

“It worked,” Boutte said, “and I went on from there.”

Buyers looking for Boutte often find her at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic and Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. spring juvenile auctions and the OBS June sale of 2-year-olds in training and older horses. Graduates of her consignments include 2002 Hutcheson Stakes (gr. II) winner Showmeitall, 2002 Safely Kept Stakes (gr. III) winner Miss Lodi, and other added-money winners such as Bernie Blue and Cinnamon Road.

Boutte and her husband prepared Schwartz’ homebred stakes winner The Lumber Guy for racing. The Grand Slam colt had won both of his career races before finishing fifth in the April 7 Resorts World Casino New York City Wood Memorial (gr. I). The Bouttes also help New York horseman John DeStefano select yearlings to buy for the Black Swan Stable syndicate and then break them at Eagle’s View. Last year Black Swan’s Sean Avery triumphed in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap (gr. I).

“It’s the second marriage for both of us, and Chris is an important part of all this,” Boutte said. “He’s a horseman through and through. We work hand in hand. What I don’t have time to do in a day, he finishes. And what he doesn’t have time to do in a day, I finish.”

Fueling the Fire: Anita Cauley - By Evan Hammonds

aspradling — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:04:00 GMT

(Originally published in the April 7, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

By Evan Hammonds

Anita Cauley and her trainer Gary “Red Dog” Hartlage are riding a hot streak they hope will run through the spring…and beyond. Cauley’s homebred On Fire Baby, winner of Oaklawn Park’s Honeybee Stakes (gr. II) at 2-5, March 10 will make a run at either the Fantasy Stakes (gr. II) or Arkansas Derby (gr. I) in her next start—a start they expect will propel the daughter of Smoke Glacken to the first weekend in May at Churchill Downs.

Cauley, a Louisville resident, has been involved in racing for more than 25 years. Her game plan was to race fillies and then sell them as broodmare prospects, but the template changed when Ornate came along. A daughter of Gilded Time—Nile Chant, by Val de l’Orne, Ornate was an $80,000 buy as a Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling in the summer of 1998 by Anita and her late husband Barry Ebert. A winner of the 2002 Pleasant Temper Stakes at Kentucky Downs, Ornate was put in the 2003 Keeneland November sale while in foal to E Dubai.

“A wonderful turn of events happened,” Cauley said. “I put a relatively high reserve on her. In my head I needed somebody to pay a decent amount of money for her to go to a good home, and she didn’t meet the reserve.”

Instead of buying horses, Cauley decided to “create horses.” A self-described control freak, she decided if she was particular to whom she bred Ornate to she could get a horse with a career that would last beyond its 2-year-old year.

The resulting foal, High Heels, would go on to win the 2007 Fantasy Stakes and run third in the Kentucky Oaks (gr. I). She placed in four other graded stakes and earned $484,636.

Ornate’s second foal, French Kiss (by Hussonet), won a stakes and was grade III-placed at 4. Her fifth foal is On Fire Baby, who won the Pocahontas and Golden Rod stakes (both gr. II) last fall at Churchill Downs and kicked off her 2012 campaign Jan. 16 with a third-place finish against the boys in Oaklawn’s Smarty Jones Stakes.

In choosing stallions for Ornate, Cauley does her homework—both on paper and by viewing the sires up close with adviser Lee McMillin of Amende Place near Paris, Ky.

“I really look at a lot of spreadsheets and stallion numbers,” Cauley said. “I look at stallions that have good race records at 4 and 5; a horse that was out there and was sound and racing at that age.

“I had to make exceptions, and Smoke Glacken was one of those because he only raced at 3. He had some incredible numbers, and for a $10,000 stud fee, what were people not seeing? The only thing was his sale numbers; he’s not that commercial, but I didn’t care. If he throws runners, then that’s what I’m looking for.”

Cauley learned some of that homebred mentality while growing up outside Indianapolis. She always loved horses but didn’t learn how to ride until she was 22, finding herself in an equitation class with school-aged children.

“I was completely embarrassed by that but was told I needed to learn how to ride properly,” she recalled with a laugh. “I got through that and eventually showed Arabian show horses.”

Her late husband owned an investment-counseling firm. She married political consultant and former chief of staff for Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, James Cauley and has been fortunate to be able to focus more on her horses lately.

With McMillin tending to Ornate and her foals, and Barry and Shari Eisaman’s Eisaman Equine in central Florida breaking the youngsters, it’s up to Hartlage to train them on the track.

“I couldn’t tell you what she’s done for me,” Hartlage said of his relationship with Cauley. “I’m still training horses because of her. If you want to rate somebody on a scale of 1 to 10, she’s a 10. She’s got total faith in me, and I have total faith in her.”

Cauley and Ebert met Hartlage more than 25 years ago, and they’ve been together since. While interviewing trainers, they were taken by Hartlage’s demeanor and the family-oriented barn area. They noted that most of Hartlage’s family lived within a mile of each other in the Louisville neighborhood of Shively.

“That was the atmosphere I wanted,” Cauley said. “This is such a tough business that it makes it that much more enjoyable when all these other people get it and they know how hard it is, so that when you do find the winner’s circle, it’s a big celebration.”

Cauley and Hartlage hope the celebration continues, whether On Fire Baby runs against the girls or the boys.

“We’ve had a great run, and On Fire Baby has made it even better,” Hartlage said, “and we’re not done yet.”

All in the Family: Bisnath and Shivananda Parboo - By Jim Freer

aspradling — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:46:00 GMT

(Originally published in the March 31, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

By Jim Freer

For several days in early March, 6-year-old Ryan Parbhoo kept asking family members, “Do you have my ticket to Dubai yet?”

He had a special reason for that question because Giant Ryan, his family’s graded stakes-winning sprinter, is named after him.

The answer on tickets to Dubai is “yes” for Giant Ryan, young Ryan, and approximately 20 other members of the family of his grandfather, trainer Bisnath Parboo.

Giant Ryan is entered in the six-furlong Dubai Golden Shaheen Sponsored by Gulf News (UAE-I) at Meydan Racecourse. The $2 million race is part of the March 31 World Cup program.

“We wouldn’t be going if we didn’t think we had a good chance to win,” said Shivananda Parbhoo, Bisnath’s son and listed owner of most of the family’s horses,

Giant Ryan won two graded stakes last year to cap a six-race winning streak. The Golden Shaheen will be the first start of the year for the 6-year-old New York-bred son of Freud—Kheyrah, by Dayjur.

Having a horse in a Dubai World Cup race is the latest achievement in the family’s rise to prominence in the sport over the last two years. It began in late 2010 when they were the surprising winners of the trainer and owner titles at the Tropical meet at Calder Casino & Race Course in South Florida. Last summer and fall they hit the national spotlight with the graded stakes success of Giant Ryan and Trinniberg.

Those who encountered the Parbhoos in their travels found out something that Mike Anifantis, Calder’s racing secretary, learned when they arrived at the southeast Florida track in 2010.

“They are the nicest people you will ever meet,” Anifantis said. “Right away, I could see that they ran a quality operation. They take care of business, they keep a very clean stable, and they run in races that are the best spots for their horses.”

The Parbhoos own and train 17 horses, all stabled at Calder.

One of the first things anyone asks about the Parbhoos is why Bisnath spells his last name differently from other family members. The answer is that due to a clerical error the “h” was left out of his name upon his arrival in the United States from Trinidad & Tobago.

“I’ll get it fixed sometime,” Bisnath said.

Meanwhile, he is busy with racing, which has been a big part of his life in his native country and later in the United States.

He was born in 1939 and often went to racetracks with his father, Vatoon, who was a businessman and a Thoroughbred owner in Trinidad & Tobago. Bisnath was a trainer for several years on that island nation near Venezuela.

“But I never had the best horses and never won any stakes,” he said.

The family moved to the U.S. in 1982, when Shivananda was 17, and settled in the New York City area. The Parbhoos started a trucking business, and Bisnath remained in racing as an owner. He took out a New York trainer’s license in 2007.

By then, many of the younger family members had moved to the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area, and Shivananda had relocated the trucking business to that market. Bisnath moved to South Florida in 2010 and relocated his stable from Belmont Park to Calder.

He attributes his early success at Calder to a level of day-to-day competition that is less intense than at Belmont and Aqueduct.

Giant Ryan also benefited from the move to Florida.

He had raced only six times through 2010 because of problems with fungus on his feet.

A new team of veterinarians and blacksmith Avelo Sigmundo helped Giant Ryan overcome those problems. Last year he won the Smile Sprint Handicap (gr. II) at Calder and the Vosburgh Invitational Stakes (gr. I) at Belmont.

Giant Ryan finished eighth in the Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Sprint (gr. I) at Churchill Downs Nov. 5. The Parbhoos later discovered he had run with a respiratory infection.

Trinniberg finished second in two graded stakes last year. In his 2012 debut he won the seven-furlong Swale Stakes (gr. II) at Gulfstream Park.

The colt’s name is a combination of Trinidad and Teufelsberg, his sire.

The Parbhoos do their own buying, usually at sales conducted by the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. or in private purchases.

“When owners ask us about training their horses, we nicely tell them ‘no,’” Shivananda said on a recent morning at his family’s Calder barn. “They sometimes want you to go into a race that is not right for the horse and you can’t argue with them,” he added. “If Pops (Bisnath) and I disagree about something, we talk about it and work it out.”

They have been in firm agreement about the training and racing of Giant Ryan—and that horse has taken them on a road from Calder to Churchill Downs and now to Dubai.

Master of All Trades: Peter Bradley - By Lenny Shulman

aspradling — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:12:00 GMT

(Originally published in the March 24, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

For a bloodstock agent, Peter Bradley sure seems to own his share of stakes winners. The latest in the impressive parade is Dayatthespa, a City Zip filly who took the Herecomesthebride Stakes (gr. IIIT) at Gulfstream Park March 11. In addition to selling horses, selling seasons, planning matings, and pinhooking, Bradley also puts together racing partnerships, which has resulted in him having a piece of stakes winners Wake Up Maggie, A True Pussycat, Tears I Cry, Saffron Dancer, grade II winner Pyrus, and grade III winner Gino’s Spirits.

“That was a good one,” Bradley said of the last named. “About a half hour before she went through the ring, my buyer decided he was out, so I got on the phone and made the mistake no bloodstock agent should ever make—I told Tom VanMeter I’d take a piece of her myself.”

Bradley honed his eye for horses early on. He grew up on a cattle ranch near Sacramento. His mother bought three Welsh ponies for Bradley and two siblings, but before long the operation grew to include a 150-stall show barn and a riding academy. Bradley got his fill of the equine world.

“I decided at age 13 I hated horses,” he said.

While attending the University of California-Davis, though, Bradley relented. He traveled to Kentucky with California agent Rollin Baugh and bought a couple of fillies to pinhook. The fillies turned a profit so he figured this was an easy game, an opinion that lasted until he tried repeating his success a year later. After graduating, Bradley pursued in earnest his racing education by first becoming an assistant trainer to Gene Cleveland at Santa Anita Park. He had his hands on Princess Karenda, who won the 1981 Santa Margarita Invitational Handicap (gr. I). After more than two years Bradley decided to head back to Kentucky to acquire a broader overview of the business.

“I figured I’d stay five years,” he noted. “That was 30 years ago.”

The education proved far-ranging. Bradley became farm manager at Fred Seitz’ Brookdale Farm, then took a job at Cromwell Bloodstock for three years before moving on to Lane’s End Farm, where he was in charge of private sales for seven years. Finally, he started an agency with Neil Bowden. When his partner headed home to Australia, the business became Bradley Thoroughbred Brokerage.

“It seems everyone has a niche,” said Bradley. “But I’ve tried to broaden things out a bit. I’ll sell about 150 seasons a year and also do matings, which is a good bread-and-butter business. When the mare business was rolling, we probably sold 30-40 mares a year off large farms to sophisticated buyers.”

In partnership with Nick de Meric for some 15 years, Bradley pinhooked top horses such as Dream Rush, Belgravia, and Lone Star Sky. Now Bradley partners with Eddie Woods, and that arrangement has been thriving at recent sales. At the Barretts sale earlier this month, an Indygo Shiner colt sold for $330,000 out of Woods’ consignment on behalf of a venture led by Bradley, who bought the colt for $37,000 as a yearling.

Then there are the racing partnerships. Dayatthespa caught Bradley’s eye at the 2011 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s March sale of 2-year-olds in training, but she was withdrawn from the auction. The following day he made a deal with Niall Brennan to buy her for himself, Steve Laymon, Jerry Frankel, and Ronald Frankel. She won first time out at Saratoga, and shortly after Bradley got a call from trainer Chad Brown.
“I think you made a mistake,” Brown said. “You bought a nice horse.”

Bradley, who works out of his Lexington office, also put together a group that bought a half-interest in Aldebaran, who “disappointed us by running second in four grade I races. Except the next year he became a champion.

“I like putting together racing partnerships. It takes a lot of money to race horses, so I keep a small percentage and try to find like-minded people and put together groups that can have some fun and understand there are more hard times than good times, but persevere and get as much enjoyment as we can out of the good ones.”

Bradley lists a number of people who have helped him along the way, starting with when he was coming up with hunters and jumpers.

“Everyone in that world is always looking for a balanced horse,” Bradley noted. “So I learned that at a young age. Then, Gene Cleveland was a great horseman and taught me a lot. (Trainer) Dick Lundy was a superb horseman. I sold horses to Elliott Walden, and he taught me more about the horses after I sold them than I knew before. I was lucky enough to sell horses to Bobby Frankel, so I got to listen to him pontificate. You can learn so much from everybody in this game. You have to listen in order to keep learning about your trade.”

'Capping It Off: Adam Wachtel - By Esther Marr

aspradling — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 12:58:00 GMT

(Originally published in the March 17, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

Adam Wachtel is no newbie to the Thoroughbred world. As a child, he was introduced to the industry by his father, prominent New York owner Ed Wachtel, and he grew up on the New York circuit racetracks. But Adam would want it no other way.

“I’ve been going to the races since I was 10 years old,” said Wachtel, 50, who resides in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., with his wife, Susan, and stepchildren Lauren and Matt-hew. “Even though I went to law school, I don’t practice. I loved racing from the first time I went to the track, and I always knew I’d get involved one day.”

Adam Wachtel, who bought his first horse when he was a college student, has bred and raced several stakes winners over the years with his father, in partnership with others, and on his own.

“Racing was just a hobby for most of the owners I grew up around,” said Wachtel, who currently has 25 horses in training. “I thought if I treated it as a business, then maybe I would have an edge over the other owners and end up in the winner’s circle one day with a grade I.”

Wachtel’s stable currently features two different standouts: grade II winner Al Khali and grade I victor Ron the Greek. He owns both horses in partnership with his longtime friend Nils Brous. The latter is also co-owned by Jack Hammer, the horse’s breeder.

Al Khali, a two-time graded winner on turf, has been a little off form lately, but Wachtel has high hopes for the 6-year-old son of Medaglia d’Oro.

“His last two turf races were thirds (2011 Sword Dancer Invitational, gr. IT; and Northern Dancer Turf Stakes, Can-IT), so we feel he could still be one of the top players in the distance turf category,” said Wachtel.

Ron the Greek’s best form began to emerge late last year, with back-to-back stakes victories at Aqueduct and then a close second behind Mucho Macho Man in the Jan. 28 Florida Sunshine Millions Classic Stakes. Wachtel and trainer Bill Mott decided to step the 5-year-old son of Full Mandate up in class for the March 3 Santa Anita Handicap (gr. I) and he rewarded them with an easy 31⁄2-length victory.

Wachtel first took a liking to Ron the Greek following his victory as a 3-year-old in the 2010 Lecomte Stakes (gr. III), but he was unable to purchase the horse from Hammer then because he was on the Triple Crown trail.

Hammer finally offered Wachtel and Brous the opportunity to acquire a majority interest in Ron the Greek following an eight-race losing streak during his 3- and 4-year-old campaigns.

“(Hammer) thought he was mismanaging the horse or doing something wrong,” said Wachtel. “He felt like maybe if he could hand over the reins to me and Bill Mott, it could help get the horse back in the right direction. I looked at his recent races, and I felt he had every bit of the potential he had when he was young.”

Wachtel was quick to point out that he has great respect for Ron the Greek’s previous trainers Tom Amoss, Tom Albertrani, and Peter Walder. But once the horse was in Mott’s barn, it just seemed like the best fit.

“I think I do a pretty good job of working with Bill and managing our horses,” said Wachtel. “We came up with the right game plan.”

Their strategy involved giving Ron the Greek a few months off last summer to regroup and work with Mott’s team, which seemed to be exactly what the horse needed.

Ron the Greek is a typical example of Wachtel’s racing philosophy. Because Wachtel is also a breeder—he keeps eight mares and stands the stallion One Nice Cat at Keane Stud near Amenia, N.Y.—the veteran horseman tends to buy only horses in the open market.

Wachtel likes acquiring runners that have impressive Ragozin numbers, like Ron the Greek did when he finished third behind Hymn Book and I Want Revenge in the Three Coins Up Stakes at Belmont Park last May.

“On the Ragozin sheets, which is what I use for purchasing and managing horses, he ran a 13⁄4, which is monstrous,” Wachtel said.

Wachtel’s other main strategy is to buy horses that have shown potential but don’t fit into their current trainers’ programs. Because his trainers—Mott, Chris Englehart, Dale Romans, Billy Morey, and Allen Iwinski—are spread across the nation, Wachtel can be flexible about sending horses to the region where he feels they belong.

Wachtel’s past success speaks for itself, and considering the rapid progress Ron the Greek has made, the future looks bright for the horse to continue on the path to stardom.

“We’re just really excited about him; we think he’s a legitimate threat,” said Wachtel, whose long-term plans involve getting Ron the Greek to the Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I) in November. “He’ll be a major factor in the older handicap division for sure. We’re hoping for a little luck, and if he stays healthy, then watch out for Ron the Greek this year.”

Beulah-tiful - By Steve Montemarano

aspradling — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 14:13:00 GMT

(Originally published in the March 10, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

By Steve Montemarano

Steve Montemarano is an Ohio resident and an appointed member of the Governors Thoroughbred Race Fund Advisory Council.

Tucked inside Barn 7 on the chilly backstretch of Beulah Park is a miracle and perhaps Thoroughbred racing’s best kept secret—a laid-back 11-year-old Ohio-bred gelding with more than a million dollars in earnings, all but $748 earned locally. The horse, named Catlaunch, is rangy and calm. His eagerness to race is exceeded only by an unheard of durability and an affinity for peppermints.

Trainer Ivan Vazquez walks toward a stall. As I unwrap a peppermint, Catlaunch begins to reach for it. The trainer says “easy.” The horse pauses, looks at Vazquez, then gently takes the candy from my palm.

Vazquez says Catlaunch makes him feel like getting up in the morning. And that’s saying something, especially on a backstretch struggling for survival. Yet, Vazquez, Catlaunch, and Beulah Park are symbolic of better things to come. They resonate a genuine quality reflective of working-class horsemen in Ohio.

Born in Puerto Rico, Vazquez moved to Atlantic City, N.J., when he was 17. He rode races and matter of factly recalls the great riders. “My favorite was Braulio Baeza,” he said. Baeza rode 1963 Kentucky Derby winner Chateaugay, who was owned by native Ohioan John Galbreath—the late master of Darby Dan Farm.

But after several spills and a broken back, Vazquez went to work for trainer Luis Palacios and stuck with his boss for 23 years. However, on Sept. 22, 2005, everything changed when Palacios, a leading trainer in Ohio, was killed in a car accident. Vazquez was left without a job and the 4-year-old Catlaunch without a trainer. At that point the gelding had won a maiden special event and a few Ohio allowance races. Everything was up in the air. Then Catlaunch’s breeder and owner, Ron Fields, called and offered Vazquez the training job. Vazquez took it.

Fields’ loyalty was soon rewarded as Catlaunch became a stakes winner a few months later, in the aptly named Babst/Palacios Memorial Handicap at Beulah.

Having spent time with Vazquez and Catlaunch, I realize that feat wasn’t coincidental. It was fate.

“Mr. Palacios was so kind to me,” recalled Vazquez. “This horse is so special. He’s once in a lifetime.”

And much like Catlaunch’s inconspicuous rise to local fame, Beulah Park doesn’t garner national attention either. The track, opened in 1923, is a recognized historical landmark and is Ohio’s oldest racing facility. But Beulah Park is routinely the brunt of industry jokes because of low purses further diminished by neighboring casino competition. However, the paddock and grandstand have understated charm. Plus, the place is clean.

The racetrack may have the last laugh as Ohio’s pending video lottery terminal legislation ignites a racing revival in the Buckeye State.

The word Beulah is even mentioned once in the Bible. “No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate,” says Isaiah 62:4.

Ohio is steeped in racing tradition. Just a short drive from Beulah is a county fairground that hosts the Little Brown Jug, the Standardbred pacing Triple Crown event. Could Thoroughbred racing here achieve such lofty status? Yes, especially if legislators allocate 13⁄8% of all wagers to the Ohio Thoroughbred race fund. This will fuel state-bred stake races, breeder awards, and agriculture jobs—a major thrust of a balanced VLT program.

But Catlaunch is oblivious to all of this, and the condition of racing in Ohio has probably contributed to the gelding’s success and charm. “The races are hard to come by for him,” Vazquez said. “There aren’t many horses left. We race him when we can. We race him if he’s ready.”

From the looks of it, Catlaunch is ready most of the time. Currently his 39 wins from 91 starts give him a 43% strike rate and earnings of $1,060,844 in nine years of racing. Vazquez has excellent stats, too. For 2012 his 10 wins and 61% of runners in-the-money rank him third overall at Beulah.

Track veterinarian Lisa Santa-Emma marvels at Catlaunch. Dr. Santa-Emma says she loves him but jokes the horse loves her technician Debbie more.

“That’s because I give him peppermints,” mused Debbie.

Next up for Catlaunch is the Babst/Palacios Memorial Handicap scheduled at Beulah on the first Saturday in May.

Fields humbly added, “It’s an amazing thing. I bred an Ohio horse that kings and queens would like to have. Ivan deserves so much credit.”

Vazquez and Catlaunch defy the odds. With a little luck and prompt legislative backing, horse racing in Ohio will do the same.

A Promising Beginning: Ted and Judy Nichols - by Esther Marr

aspradling — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:09:00 GMT

(Originally published in the January 14, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

Some may call it beginner’s luck that the first horse ever bred and raced by California residents Ted and Judy Nichols became a grade I winner. But when Teddy’s Promise prevailed in the Dec. 31 La Brea Stakes (gr. I) at Santa Anita Park, the couple hoped it was more than just random good fortune. Perhaps the New Year’s Eve victory was a sign of a prosperous future for the business.

“We’re on cloud nine,” said Ted Nichols after the 4-year-old homebred Salt Lake filly scored her first black-type victory by 21⁄4 lengths. “Judy was saying that about 2% of people in Thoroughbred racing win a grade I. This is just unbelievable.”

Entering the industry was something Ted Nichols had thought about since spending time around his father’s Thoroughbreds as a child, but it took him many years to make the plunge into ownership.

“I’ve always been very fond of the (Thoroughbred) breed and went to the races many times growing up, but Judy is the one that said, ‘We’re not getting any younger, so let’s get involved,’ ” said Ted, 75. “So that’s what we did.”

Outside of racing, the Nicholses own and operate Sunrun Kennels, a commercial dog boarding, training, and grooming facility in Newport Beach. Ted Nichols, who is retired from running a sales and marketing company, is also sanctioned by the American Kennel club to judge various dog shows throughout the United States and abroad.

Both Ted and Judy have owned, trained, raised, and handled several champion show dogs of various breeds over the years.
When the couple decided to expand their animal ownership to include Thoroughbreds in 2008, they bought a seven-acre avocado grove and horse farm near Oceanside, Calif.

The operation is now home to Braids and Beads, the dam of Teddy’s Promise, whom the Nicholses privately purchased from the Mabee family’s Golden Eagle Farm while she was carrying the La Brea winner. They later bought Poetry Writer, a stakes-placed daughter of Staff Writer.

“I liked (Braids and Beads’) pedigree,” said Ted Nichols. “Her father is Capote, by Seattle Slew, and I love that line. Her bottom side has Alydar (sire of Braids and Beads’ dam Alydar’s Promise), so there’s a lot of stamina there. (Braids and Beads) is a big girl—17 hands—and she’s beautiful.”

Braids and Beads has a Stormin Fever yearling named Blazing Fever, whom the Nicholses also plan to race. They have scheduled her to go to Tribal Rule this year. Poetry Writer has a yearling Stormin Fever colt named Writer Fever and will be bred to Dixie Chatter for 2013.

“We’ll see what happens with these babies—both of the Stormin Fevers are very promising,” said Ted. “We’re just going to pursue that and see where it takes us.”

The Nicholses sent Braids and Beads to Golden Eagle Farm in Ramona, Calif., to deliver Teddy’s Promise, who was an extremely large foal. In fact, it took five people to pull her from her mother’s womb.

“She’s always had beautiful conformation,” said Judy Nichols of Teddy’s Promise, whose name derives from her owner’s nickname and her second dam, Alydar’s Promise.

“She went through the gangly stage just like all of them do, and you just hope and pray they get out of that,” added Judy. “But by the time she was a yearling, we knew we had something special. We just wanted her to run as well as she was pretty, and now she’s doing that.”

After being sent to the Craig family’s Rancho Paseano for early training, Teddy’s Promise joined the barn of David Hofmans. She broke her maiden in her third try at 2 and closed that season with a victory in an allowance/optional claiming contest at Hollywood Park and a fourth in the California Breeders’ Champion Stakes at Santa Anita. The filly’s sophomore season got off to a slow start with losses in her first four outings.

Transferred to the care of trainer Ron Ellis last spring, Teddy’s Promise more than redeemed herself in her last three races, all victories on dirt at Santa Anita Park and on Hollywood Park’s synthetic surface.

“Ron has been extremely patient with Teddy’s Promise since he got her last spring,” said Judy. “Sometimes we say, ‘Let’s go, let’s go,’ and Ron says, ‘No, not yet.’ He’s been very selective as to where he’s run her and has gotten her ready, and now we’re just thrilled with the results; it was worth the wait.”

A Real Pistol: Amy Tarrant by Lenny Shulman

aspradling — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:37:00 GMT

(Originally published in the December 24, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

A slew of horses coming out of the two-day Breeders’ Cup World Championships in early November returned to the races in the next month, seeking redemption and perhaps a better shot at various divisional championships. Almost all of them, though, proved to be over the top, with exceptions To Honor and Serve and Jeranimo coming back to win graded stakes.

Add to that short list Pomeroys Pistol, a 3-year-old filly bred, owned, and trained by Amy Tarrant. Pomeroys Pistol ran a brave fourth in the Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (gr. I) at Churchill Downs, rallying after a bobbling start to finish four lengths behind Musical Romance. After a single five-furlong workout, Tarrant sent Pomeroys Pistol into the Sugar Swirl Stakes (gr. III) at her winter home of Gulfstream Park, and Pomeroys Pistol responded with a two-length victory over seven foes. The daughter of Pomeroy capped off a fantastic 2011 with four victories from 10 starts, all four of the wins coming in added-money events. She was second in three other graded stakes and third in yet another, banking $521,188 for the season.

That campaign is a tribute to Tarrant, who first entered the world of Thoroughbreds just 11 years ago as an owner and who began training her own stock two years after that. Her beginnings in the sport were born out of a personal crisis. When Tarrant and her husband of 34 years divorced, she decided to reinvent her life.

“I’d always loved horses—rode bareback as a kid and rode our neighbor’s horses and had a pony,” said Tarrant. “So when my youngest (of five) child went off to college, I made a list of things I wanted to do, and at the top was horses. I started in the show horse world and hired a trainer and thought I could compete, but I realized I wasn’t going to go to the Olympics, so I started thinking about racehorses as something I might be able to do for a long time. Before I knew it, I had nine 2-year-olds and no place to bring them, so I went to Ellis Park.”

Tarrant started out at 2-year-old sales, then began buying yearlings “after I realized some of those 2-year-olds shrink after you buy them like the air was let out of the balloon.” Today she buys both yearlings and juveniles, and her own breeding program is kicking in as well.

Tarrant bought Prettyatthetable, a daughter of Point Given and the dam of Pomeroys Pistol, as a yearling, but she turned out not to be a runner. Whatever she lacked at the racetrack, however, she’s made up for in the breeding shed. Two of Pomeroys Pistol’s half siblings, D’cats Meow and Wildcat Creek, are stakes-placed. Tarrant breeds and owns in the name of her Hardacre Farm near Ocala.

“That was my mother’s maiden name,” said Tarrant, one of 11 siblings. “We’re tough, so it was a perfect name. My mom died when we were young, and I decided to do something nice for her.

“I got some good advice years ago not to breed rats to rats or else you’ll have a field full of them and nobody will want them,” said Tarrant. “But if you take your best mares and breed them to the best stallions you can afford, you can make money.

“We liked the way Pomeroys Pistol looked at the beginning and thought she was pretty nice when we started breaking her. The funny thing is we had her in the OBS sale thinking she might bring in some money to help the farm. She didn’t reach the reserve, so I kept her and I’m so glad I did. Last year she was a little immature; she’d get nervous and upset. Now she handles everything better.”

The results prove that out. Pomeroys Pistol has this year won the Forward Gal Stakes (gr. II), Foxwoods Gallant Bloom Handicap (gr. II), and the Just Smashing Stakes in addition to the Sugar Swirl.

Nor is she Tarrant’s first success story. She has also trained stakes winners Kiss the Kid, Indy Wind, and stakes-placed Habiboo, all of whom she also owned. Indy Wind and Kiss the Kid stand at stud at Journeyman Stud near Ocala, and Tarrant this year sold at auction a Bernardini yearling out of Habiboo for $725,000.

Tarrant, a native of Burlington, Vt., splits her time among several venues. She still has a home in Vermont but spends the winter months based at the Palm Meadows training facility in South Florida, shipping her runners to various tracks around the Sunshine State. During the summer she typically takes a string of 20 runners north to Monmouth Park in New Jersey.

Happily, Pomeroys Pistol is slated to come back for a 4-year-old campaign, and although she is being pointed to dirt sprints such as the Hurricane Bertie Stakes (gr. III) and Inside Information Stakes (gr. II) at Gulfstream, Tarrant believes the filly is versatile enough to handle up to a mile and also perhaps the turf.

Which would make her nearly as versatile as her owner/breeder/trainer.

Head of the Posse: Donnie K. Von Hemel by Jason Shandler

aspradling — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:38:00 GMT

(Originally published in the November 26, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

Donnie K. Von Hemel has been winning races for a long time—lots of them. With 1,858 wins and more than $43.6 million in purse earnings through Nov. 15, the 50-year-old has been a high percentage trainer ever since he took his license out in 1984.

But being based at Remington Park in Oklahoma City—where he is the racetrack’s all-time leader by wins—Von Hemel is a little off the beaten path of the major racing circuits. You might say he has been a big fish in a small pond for more than 25 years. So despite all of his success, it took a thunderous stretch run from Caleb’s Posse in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (gr. I) Nov. 5 at Churchill Downs for many people to take notice.

An Oklahoma native who regularly sports a cowboy hat, Von Hemel is humble as the day is long. You will never hear him sing his own praises, but he does admit that it is finally nice to have a lifetime of hard work pay off on the sport’s largest stage.

“You always hope to have a horse like this that will confirm to your clients that you can get the job done,” Von Hemel said. “And maybe it will also open up the eyes of other people looking for a new trainer that you are capable. Hopefully, we’ll be able to turn this win into some other nice horses.

“The nicest and most humbling thing about the whole experience is how many people were watching, cheering, and pulling for me. That was pretty special.”

Though Von Hemel graduated with an accounting degree from Fort Hays University in Kansas, he always knew his career path would involve horses. He learned the art of training from his father, Don Von Hemel, who has won more than 2,400 races in his career and is still an active trainer at age 77. The elder Von Hemel advised Donnie to choose another career path, but that fell on deaf ears. Donnie was hooked from the start, as was his younger brother, Kelly, who is also a successful trainer on the Midwest circuit.

“I wanted to make sure I got my degree, but I knew I always wanted to be a trainer,” said Donnie, who counts his father, Caleb’s Posse’s co-owner/breeder Don McNeill, and Pin Oak Stud’s owner Josephine Abercrombie as the biggest influences on his career.
Von Hemel has been based at Remington Park since it opened in 1998. He moves his stable of 40 horses to Arlington Park in the summer and Oaklawn Park in the winter. Prior to Caleb’s Posse, he was probably best-known for training Clever Trevor, also bred and owned by McNeill. The son of Slewacide gave Von Hemel his first grade I victory in the 1989 Arlington Classic, won the inaugural Remington Park Derby that year, and earned more than $1.3 million in his career. The 25-year-old gelding lives with Von Hemel and his wife, Robin, at their Piedmont, Okla., farm. The couple has one daughter, Tess.

“He is a wonderful horse; he’s at the top of the list,” said Von Hemel of Clever Trevor, who was also second in the 1989 Travers Stakes (gr. I) to Easy Goer. “Explosive Girl was also one of my favorites because she was the first stakes winner I was fortunate enough to train (1987).”

In all, Von Hemel has conditioned 30 graded stakes winners including Alternation, who won this year’s Peter Pan Stakes (gr. II) at Belmont Park; Going Ballistic, the 2007 Super Derby (gr. II) victor; and See How She Runs, a grade I winner he trained for Pin Oak. Von Hemel also is a regular trainer for country music star Toby Keith, their most recent top horse being Prairie Meadows Juvenile Mile winner and graded stakes-placed Sherriff Cogburn.

As for Caleb’s Posse, the bay colt has won four graded stakes this year and will head into 2012 as one of the top returning older horses in the country. He may give Von Hemel his first Eclipse Award winner when votes are tallied at the end of the year.

“We felt from the time he arrived in the summer of 2010 that he had some talent,” Von Hemel said. “It was fun finding out along the way his best way to run, distance-wise and style-wise. I’m glad we got it figured out.

“I don’t want to sound too bold, but he’s got as good a résumé as any 3-year-old out there.”

Triple Threat: BryLynn Farm - by Eric Mitchell

aspradling — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:29:00 GMT

(Originally published in the November 12, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

Breeders’ Cup World Championships weekend was a phenomenal milestone in the life of BryLynn Farm, a small, family-run Central Florida breeding operation started 26 years ago.

Three horses bred by BryLynn started in the Breeders’ Cup races held Nov. 4-5 at Churchill Downs. Having one Breeders’ Cup starter is a feat for any breeder, but BryLynn managed three in one year out of a broodmare band of 12 mares.

“It is really, really exciting,” said Toni Jones a few days prior to the Breeders’ Cup. She is the daughter of Joe and Phyllis Bryant, who bought the land for the farm in 1983 and turned it into a working Thoroughbred nursery by 1985. “I am thrilled because of the amount of money they have put into the farm and all the effort. To see them finally get to see this is amazing. The Breeders’ Cup is for breeders.”

BryLynn was represented in the Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Sprint (gr. I), the Emirates Airline Breeders’ Cup Turf (gr. IT), and the TVG Breeders’ Cup Mile (gr. IT).

Aikenite, a grade II-winning son of Yes It’s True out of Silverlado (by Saint Ballado), started in the Sprint. The 4-year-old colt is owned by Dogwood Stable and is trained by Todd Pletcher. Going into the Breeders’ Cup, he had five wins from 22 starts and career earnings of $766,635.

Millionaire Teaks North ran in the Turf. The 4-year-old gelded son of Northern Afleet—Teaksberry Road (by High Honors) has three wins out of eight starts this year including the United Nations Stakes (gr. IT). Teaks North is owned by Resolute Group Stables and trained by Justin Sallusto.

And finally, Jeranimo started in the Mile for owner B.J. Wright and trainer Mike Pender. The bay 5-year-old son of Congaree—Jera (by Jeblar) has been in the money four times out of eight starts this year and has career earnings of $660,400.

Of the three, Aikenite put in the best performance of the day, finishing fourth behind winner Amazombie, Force Freeze, and Jackson Bend. Jeranimo finished seventh and Teaks North finished eighth.

Teaksberry Road, who died in 2009, was a phenomenal mare for BryLynn, who had purchased her privately in 2000. She produced eight winners out of nine foals of racing age. Teaks North is her last foal and her second graded stakes winner.

BryLynn Farm bred Silverlado and kept her as a broodmare when she failed to bring her reserve at the 2002 Keeneland September yearling sale. She later sold as a broodmare in the 2007 Keeneland November breeding stock sale in foal to Bandini. She had already delivered Aikenite earlier in the year. Unfortunately, a year after she was sold, Silverlado colicked and died.

Jeranimo is the first stakes winner out of Jera, who has had two other stakes-placed runners. Jeranimo sold as a yearling for $50,000 out of the 2007 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s August sale, then sold at Barretts’ May 2-year-olds in training sale for $70,000 to agent Rick Taylor of Special T Thoroughbreds.

Jera will be offered in the Keeneland November breeding stock sale in foal to Eskendereya. Like many other farms during these challenging economic times, BryLynn is having to reduce its broodmare band.

“We thought Jeranimo was doing so well, this might be the right time to sell,” said Jones.

BryLynn has worked closely with Taylor Made Farm near Nicholasville, Ky., throughout most of its years in operation. The family-owned full service farm has helped the Bryants find good broodmare prospects and then later helped them sell their foals, usually as yearlings.

Until the Thoroughbred industry rebounds further, BryLynn is going to focus more on pinhooking and less on breeding, according to Frank Taylor of Taylor Made Farm.

“On the mares, we looked for some race record and production record, but we never compromised on conformation,” Taylor said. “As of right now, however, we want to simplify the operation. We are going to focus on pinhooking weanlings and in time we’ll build the broodmare band back up. They are great people and good assets to the game.”

Double Trouble: Twin Creeks Farm - by Lenny Shulman

aspradling — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:42:00 GMT

Twin Creeks Farm has become a double threat. Its racing stable made it to last year’s Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) with Louisiana Derby winner (gr. II) Mission Impazible, and over the past few years the Twin Creeks breeding operation has made headlines as breeder of 2009 Darley Alcibiades (gr. I) winner Negligee and co-breeder of 2011 Pennsylvania Derby (gr. II) victor To Honor and Serve, who also scored last year in the Nashua and Remsen stakes (both gr. II).

Pretty impressive stuff for Twin Creeks, a 180-acre spread just outside the tiny hamlet of Nonesuch, Ky., in southern Woodford County, 15-20 miles away from powerhouses such as Lane’s End and WinStar farms. In the mostly tobacco-growing and cattle-raising area, Twin Creeks stands out like a jewel, which is what owner Steve Davison and longtime friend and farm manager Randy Gullatt had in mind when they started Twin Creeks in 1992.

Through private and public purchases as well as retiring racemares campaigned by Twin Creeks, the farm currently has a healthy roster of 18 producers, including 12 stakes winners, despite the fact they’ve taken money off the table through the years by selling some of their higher-profile mares. Among the latter group is La Paz, a multiple stakes winner trained by Gullatt who was sold to Summer Wind Farm for $1.6 million. La Paz is the dam of Mission Impazible; Forest Camp, a grade II winner raced by Aaron and Marie Jones; grade III stakes winner Spanish Empire, raced in partnership by Twin Creeks; and stakes winner Kiddari. Twin Creeks also sold Pilfer, the dam of To Honor and Serve, for $650,000 in 2008 at Keeneland’s November mixed sale.

Gullatt said Pilfer, by Deputy Minister, figured to cross well with Bernardini, an A.P. Indy son.

“To Honor and Serve was a long, leggy colt, the kind you would think could run the classic distance,” he said. “We hoped he would develop into what he has turned out to be, which is awesome.”

Despite selling La Paz and Pilfer, Twin Creeks has plenty of firepower left on the farm. Stakes-winning Tamweel has produced Ghost Is Clear, who won this year’s Hansel Stakes as a Twin Creeks homebred. Perfect Six, a multiple stakes winner, is the dam of Buffalo Man, a multiple graded stakes winner by El Prado. Other young broodmares at Twin Creeks are stakes winners May Night, Queen of Hearts, Miss Catalyst, Funny Feeling, Arabis, Unspoken Word, Wild Promises, Littlebitabling, Midst, and Silence Dogood.

“When we set up the farm, our goal was to get a good group of mares we felt comfortable with to start a racing and breeding program,” said Gullatt. “Basically we breed everything to sell (Taylor Made Sales Agency handles most of the consignments), and the ones we like that don’t bring the money we think they should, we race. If we don’t feel good about a mare, they’re not in our breeding program. They’re either stakes horses or ones we felt good about that got injured.”

The farm is not shy about breeding its mares to top stallions. They have gone to Tapit, Bernardini, Malibu Moon, Indian Charlie, Giant’s Causeway, and Unbridled’s Song.

“We pick what we feel is best for the mare,” said Gullatt. “Just because you breed to those kinds of stallions doesn’t mean you’re always going to get a good horse. We feel like we have to take a shot and hope it turns out.”

One that has definitely turned out is Mission Impazible, a 4-year-old son of Unbridled’s Song. Like most other Twin Creek racers, he is owned by a partnership whose members buy into a group of horses. After running ninth of 20 in the Kentucky Derby, Mission Impazible was shelved until this year, and the rest did him good as he won the New Orleans Handicap (gr. II) in March, then missed annexing the Stephen Foster Handicap (gr. I) by a neck, finishing second. After a pair of even but unplaced runs in the Whitney and Woodward (both gr. I) at Saratoga this summer, he is being pointed to the Fayette Stakes (gr. II) at Keeneland Oct. 29 and the Clark Handicap (gr. I) at Churchill Downs.

“He’s danced the big dances, and we really want to give him a shot at winning a grade I,” Gullatt noted. “We hope to syndicate him and stand him at stud. He won at 2 in April, won a Derby prep, and has come back to be a good handicap horse. That’s a pretty good résumé. And, knock on wood, he’s very sound. So we’d love to win a race at Keeneland in front of the breeders and then the Clark. That would be a good career.”

Pinnacle Year: Nancy Dillman - by Deirdre Biles

aspradling — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 16:04:00 GMT

Nancy Dillman can sum up 2011 so far in one word: “Marvelous.”

During the recent Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale, a Bernardini colt that Dillman bred brought $1.2 million from Sheikh Mohammed’s bloodstock manager, John Ferguson. Consigned by the sales division of Mill Ridge Farm, the handsome bay shared the auction’s honor for highest price with Superfection, a Medaglia d’Oro half brother to 2010 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner Super Saver.

In addition, Dillman is the breeder of one this year’s leading older female runners, Havre de Grace (by Saint Liam). A 4-year-old half sister to the Bernardini colt, Havre de Grace captured the Apple Blossom Handicap (gr. I) for Rick Porter’s Fox Hill Farms in April. The $380,000 graduate of the 2008 Keeneland September yearling sale is a top rival to champion Blind Luck.

“In anything involving Thoroughbreds, there can be a lot of ups and downs,” Dillman said. “This year certainly has been the pinnacle for me of the ups.”

The Bernardini colt, which is the most expensive horse ever sold at public auction by Dillman, and Havre de Grace are out of Easter Bunnette. A 13-year-old winning daughter of Carson City, she is one of only three active broodmares owned by Dillman, who stresses quality in her commercial breeding operation.

“I spend a lot of time watching my foals; that’s one of my favorite things to do,” said Dillman, who lives with her cardiologist husband, Carl, on their 45-acre Stonegate Farm near Anchorage, Ky., which is close to Louisville.

“I had three filly foals the year Havre de Grace was born, and there was no question that she was the leader of her little pack,” Dillman remembered. “She was very curious and always very aware of what was going on around her. The Bernardini colt has that same alertness, and it’s going to be interesting to watch his racing career.”

A native of upstate New York, Dillman grew up riding show horses and after moving on from ponies, she preferred Thoroughbreds as her hunter-jumper mounts. She continued competing in shows as an adult while she worked on Wall Street as a stock broker for a private hedge fund.

Dillman got involved in the breeding business in the mid-1970s.

“When I got married, my husband didn’t want me to be away on weekends at horse shows,” Dillman said. “We had friends in upstate New York who raised Thoroughbreds, so he said, ‘Why don’t you go to the sale and buy yourself some broodmares and stay home?’ That’s how it all started. I purchased my first mare at a sale in Timonium, Md., and then I wanted to go to Keeneland to buy.”

Prior to Havre de Grace and the seven-figure Bernardini colt, Dillman was best known for breeding the European champion Diminuendo. The daughter of Diesis triumphed in the Gold Seal Epsom Oaks (Eng-I), Yorkshire Oaks (Eng-I), and Kildangan Irish Oaks (Ire-I) in 1988.

Dillman sent Diminuendo’s dam, Cacti, to Diesis because she was so impressed by Pebbles, who was a champion here and overseas. The 1985 Breeders’ Cup Turf (gr. IT) winner was by Diesis’ sire, Sharpen Up, and “I fell in love with her,” Dillman said.

Besides Diminuendo, Cacti produced the Diesis-sired added-money winner Pricket, who finished second in the 1996 Epsom Oaks. Diesis also sired the Dillman-bred grade II winner Eleusis, who is out of the winner Balancing Act (by Spectacular Bid) and is a half sister to 2002 Suffolk Downs stakes winner Tip the Scale (by Valiant Nature).

But perhaps, even more importantly, Cacti’s visits to Diesis at Mill Ridge resulted in Dillman getting to know the Central Kentucky nursery’s matriarch, Alice Chandler, and her family. Dillman has been a Mill Ridge client ever since and she has a close relationship to the Mill Ridge-affiliated Nicoma Bloodstock.

Dillman’s yearlings are prepared for sales at Mill Ridge. She also sends her mares to the Lexington farm to be foaled and re-bred.
“It’s a wonderful business if you have the support of a farm like Mill Ridge,” Dillman said. “Everyone works together as a team, and they do a terrific job in terms of guiding you and communicating with you. I love working on the matings for my mares with (Chandler’s son) Headley Bell.”

And, according to Bell, Mill Ridge’s staff enjoys working with Dillman.

“First and foremost, she’s someone who loves her horses,” he said. “She’s always looking to upgrade, and she’s done very well being a small breeder with only a few mares. She’s a lovely person, she’s passionate about the Thoroughbred business, and she’s really everything you would want in a friend and a client.”

Now that one of Dillman’s sale yearlings has brought a seven-figure amount, she has another dream.

“All of my young horses go to market, but I want one of the ones that don’t sell to race for me and become my big stakes winner,” said Dillman, who plans to shop for another mare at Kentucky’s November mixed sale.

No Mistake: Art Preston - By Lenny Shulman

aspradling — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:11:00 GMT

With their signature mustaches, brothers Art and Jack Preston often get mistaken for one another by racetrack officials and reporters who don’t know them well. So after Art’s 5-year-old horse Flat Out won the Suburban Handicap (gr. II) at Belmont Park July 2, it was Jack who was supposedly getting quoted in the media about the big victory.

“Yeah, he got a big kick out of that,” said Art Preston, who campaigns the son of Flatter under his Preston Stables banner. “We take turns—I’ve been out in California where people will congratulate me on a great win they think I had out there with Jack’s horse, and I’ll go ahead and tell them how I did it.”

There is little mistake about the Prestons’ impact on Thoroughbred racing. Along with their late brother J. R., the Prestons raced Victory Gallop to win the 1998 Belmont Stakes (gr. I), denying Real Quiet the Triple Crown. They also co-owned Da Hoss, who made history by taking the 1996 Breeders’ Cup Mile (gr. IT) and returning two years later, with just one race in between, to repeat in 1998.

The brothers entered racing after success in the oil business in Texas, where they formed Preston Oil in 1970. It turned out to be the perfect primer for their Thoroughbred interests.
 “In the oil business you get a dry hole and lose 80% of the time,” Preston said. “It’s like racing—if you persevere, you’re going to hit the big one.”

Art Preston entered the Thoroughbred world in the late 1970s when he bought a piece of a $10,000 claiming horse named Old Sew and Sew, a son of Ole Bob Bowers, who became famous as the sire of the legendary John Henry. The three brothers established Preston Farm near Quanah, Texas, and, more notably, Prestonwood Farm near Versailles, Ky., which they sold in 2000 to Kenny Troutt and Bill Casner, who renamed it WinStar. The Prestons’ champion sprinter Groovy was one of the first inhabitants of their Kentucky breeding shed. They also brought in Distorted Humor, in whom they owned a half-interest with Russell Reineman. Distorted Humor has proved to be one of the world’s top sires and still stands at WinStar.

Since selling the farm, Art Preston has downsized his equine operation but still maintains a formidable stable, buying from 15-30 yearlings per season and selling perhaps half as 2-year-olds while campaigning the remainder. He has 15 2-year-olds today and a like number of older horses in training around the country with various conditioners. Preston’s Birdrun, a son of Birdstone, captured the Brooklyn Handicap (gr. II) at Belmont in June and seems a logical contender for the Breeders’ Cup Marathon (gr. III).

Also, his Central City is returning to the races after time off to fix a breathing problem. Central City is a talented sprinter, having won the Jim McKay Turf Sprint last year and finishing second in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (gr. IIT) at Churchill Downs last November. He has banked $339,000 thus far.

“Hopefully, we’ll have representation in the fall (at Breeders’ Cup),” Preston noted.

The stable star for now is Flat Out, who was on the Derby trail in 2009 after winning the Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn Park. However, foot problems and unplaced finishes in the Southwest Stakes (gr. III) and Arkansas Derby (gr. II) earned him some time off.

“He came up with quarter cracks in several of his feet, and it’s been an ongoing problem,” said Preston. “He’s never been sound enough to show the potential we thought he had.”

Preston paid $85,000 for Flat Out as a yearling, and he’s returned nearly $360,000 in purse earnings. This season he began with a good second to Awesome Gem in the Lone Star Park Handicap (gr. III), then finished sixth in a deceptively good performance in the Stephen Foster Handicap (gr. I) prior to the Suburban.

“He had the inside post and was trapped down there the entire race,” said Preston. “It was the worst place to be that day, and he still got beat only 23⁄4 lengths. We were still very game about him. He bounced right back after the race and wanted to go again, so we went to the Suburban and he got the trip and liked the track.”

After the race Preston joked that it was only the second time he’s taken money from Belmont Park back to Texas, referring to Victory Gallop’s earlier triumph.

“I should have said ‘from New York City’ because like most entrepreneurs, I’ve gone up there forever trying to raise money from those guys (investors), and I’ve never gotten any from them, so I have to get it from the horses.”

Preston is aided by Rich Decker, who ran Prestonwood Farm, and by Frank Bettencourt, the farm trainer at Preston’s facility near Paris, Ky., who breaks the babies and trains them up to the 2-year-old sales or the races. Preston’s farm is the former Golden Chance Farm.

“I’m about at the size I need to be with the horses,” said Preston, who is no longer in the breeding business. “It’s a numbers game, and you can’t get the big horse unless you’re buying some. It’s smaller than it used to be, but I’m pleased with it now.”

Published Work: Peter Callahan - By Evan Hammonds

aspradling — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:19:00 GMT

(Originally published in the July 2, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

Growing up on the sidewalks of New York, Peter Callahan thought he’d like to win the race named after his hometown of Astoria, Queens. The grade III race for 2-year-old fillies at Belmont Park has since been discontinued by the New York Racing Association, and Callahan has moved on to bigger game.

With 25 years in the horse business under his belt and more than a decade removed from his last “big horse”—1999 Futurity Stakes (gr. I) winner Bevo—Callahan regained full stride in recent months as the owner of Pan Zareta Stakes winner Beautician and Scotus, winner of the June 18 Matt Winn Stakes (gr. III) at Churchill Downs. He is also the co-breeder of grade I winner and $2.5 million earner Awesome Gem, who ran second in the June 25 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap (gr III).

“That’s the way things go for a smallish racing entity like mine; I only get lucky once every 10 years,” said Callahan, a publishing and communications mogul. “But last year and this year, I’ve been twice blessed.”

Callahan’s breakthrough in the industry came in the mid-1980s when he went from being a fractional owner of a mare to its managing partner. Subsequently, he met Runnymede Farm’s Catesby Clay and Martin O’Dowd, the farm’s vice president and managing partner.

They’ve been together ever since, buying and breeding mares and selling and racing their offspring.

“We all get along well,” O’Dowd said of Callahan. “As Mr. Clay and I were buying an odd mare here and there, if there was one we really liked, we’d ask Peter if he’d like to take a piece.”

“I don’t think Mr. Clay and I have ever had a piece of paper governing our affairs,” Callahan said. “It’s always been done by a handshake or a telephone call with Martin participating or quarterbacking.”

The group has had its fair share of success. In 1996 they bought Chancey Squaw from the Keeneland November sale for $145,000, and she produced Agnes Digital, who went on to earn more than $8 million in Japan and now stands at stud there at Big Red Farm. At the 1996 Keeneland September sale, they paid $190,000 for Piano, the dam of Awesome Gem. As a yearling, Awesome Gem sold for $150,000 at the 2004 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling sale.

“I’m so proud of him. He shows little sign of wear and tear,” said Callahan of Awesome Gem, who has an 8-14-5 slate from 44 starts and six years of racing for West Point Thoroughbreds. “Mr. Clay and I are rooting for the boy because we get a little bit of money every time he wins a graded stakes.”

Callahan is also proud of Beautician, who ran second in the 2009 Grey Goose Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. I) and fourth behind Blind Luck in last year’s Kentucky Oaks (gr. I). She won the Pan Zareta at Fair Grounds in February and has since moved on to her new home at Runnymede, where she has been bred to Street Cry.

And then there’s Scotus, a 3-year-old son of Successful Appeal who turned back a nice field to win the Matt Winn by a length for trainer Kenny McPeek. In the next race at Churchill Downs, McPeek saddled Runnymede’s Bizzy Caroline to win the Regret Stakes (gr. IIIT).

Scotus, a $25,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase, broke his maiden at first asking March 23 at Gulfstream Park and placed in three consecutive two-turn allowance races before the Matt Winn.

“He’s a late bloomer who has popped up, and we’re looking to have some fun with him,” Callahan said.

Callahan has had fun not only in racing but in business as well. As unit president of MacFadden Publishing, he was the principal shareholder in the National Enquirer from 1989-99.

“I was going to call my stable ‘Elvis Stables,’ but I thought that would be inappropriate,” he said.
Callahan also had a stake in the Daily Racing Form when it was run by the private equity Alpine Group.

“Putting ink on dead trees is sort of generic,” he deadpanned, noting MacFadden has shifted toward the business-to-business category.
Semi-retired and living in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., Callahan can best be categorized as enthusiastic and, above all, loyal.

“When he’s your friend, he’s your friend,” O’Dowd said. “He’s one of the most important people in my life, personally. We don’t think of him as a client; we think of him as a friend. Anything we do for ourselves, we do for him.”

Mandy's Way - By Esther Marr

aspradling — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 16:16:00 GMT

(Originally published in the June 18, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

When Tizway came charging down the stretch in the Metropolitan Handicap (gr. I), his decisive 21⁄4-length victory was a confirmation for veteran breeder Mandy Pope. Her nearly 30 years in the Thoroughbred breeding business—the hard work, intuition earned through experience, and substantial financial investment—were now paying big dividends.

Pope, 56, has bred other stakes winners, even two group I winners. But the 6-year-old son of Tiznow, whom she no longer owns, is her first grade I win as a breeder. The icing on the cake was her Whisper Hill Farm became the first breeder to collect a $10,000 bonus for nominating the winner of a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race.

“The two things you have to have in this business are time and patience,” said Pope, who has been rewarded as the breeder of group I winners Launch Sequence and Outstanding Lady, and other graded stakes victors Morning Meadow and Bearpath.

“I’m thankful to the owner of (Tizway) that he was persistent to keep going with him and not quit,” she said of William Clifton Jr. “It’s so easy to get frustrated in this game that you stop and don’t really give the horses a chance to mature and show you what they can do.”

Pope’s journey with Tizway’s family began nine years ago, when she purchased his dam, the Dayjur mare Bethany, for $135,000 at the 2002 Keeneland January mixed sale from Christiana Stables through Walnut Green, agent.

“She had a lovely pedigree, being by Dayjur,” said Pope of Bethany, who was in foal to Pleasant Tap at the time of the sale. “Her conformation was also nice—she was very leggy and scopey.”
Pope said Tizway, who was foaled and raised at Wayne Sweezy’s Timber Town Stable near Lexington, was always a “good-sized, rangy kind of foal with a good temperament. He was very easy to get along with.”

When asked if she regretted selling Tizway, Pope said keeping him as a racing prospect simply wasn’t in the cards that year. Fortunately, Bethany delivered a full brother to Tizway March 20, and if all goes well, Pope plans on racing the colt.

“We’ll have to see how things shape up next year,” she said. “I originally bred the mare to Tiznow, because I liked crossing the mare with Seattle Slew bloodlines, which is what Ticket to Seattle (Tizway’s stakes-winning half brother by Capote) also is.”

Pope, a North Carolina native and lifelong horse woman purchased her Citra, Fla.-based Whisper Hill Farm 29 years ago. Having grown up riding hunters and jumpers, she took some show horses to Florida for a competition in 1980 and wound up making the Sunshine State her permanent residence.

Pope jumped from the show horse world to the Thoroughbred racing scene when she took a job working with broodmares at George Steinbrenner’s Kinsman Stud. Two years later she began looking for her own farm.

“I wanted to settle down and not be traveling every weekend to a horse show, and I loved the Ocala area,” Pope said. “I had never been exposed to racehorses before having grown up in North Carolina, but I fell in love with the babies. My first broodmare was my Thoroughbred show horse, Blue Whisper. That’s who I named the farm (Whisper Hill) after.”

Pope’s operation quickly grew from two horses to more than 50, which she spreads between her farm in Florida and three other farms in Kentucky. Pope, who is on the board of directors for her family’s discount retail franchise company Variety Wholesalers, makes breeding and sale decisions along with friend and fellow breeder Kim Heath, Kentucky bloodstock consultants Chris Brothers and Davant Latham, and her fiancé, veterinarian Mike Chovanes.

Heath said much of Pope’s success has stemmed from her dedication to the industry and her refusal to give up during hard times.

“She perseveres, and she does her homework,” said Heath, who handles Pope’s mare bookings. “With all the setbacks and the heartbreaks in this business—she’s been doing it long enough that she knows you’re going to have these things—and if you persevere, you’re going to have the good things too.”

“As they always say, this sport has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, and you try and keep your mindset somewhat in between,” added Pope. “There have been many good memories over the years…every time you see that newborn foal, every time you get to see one of your horses win—whether it’s one you bred or you own, and whether it’s a cheap race or big race—you’re always proud.”

Ken Ramsey - By Jacqueline Duke

aspradling — Tue, 10 May 2011 15:01:00 GMT

(Originally published in the May 14, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

Ken Ramsey is an industry Breeder and Owner.

By any measure Ken Ramsey had had an outstanding Keeneland spring meet. He and his wife, Sarah Kathern, were poised to win their ninth leading owner title, and on the last day they had aim on Calumet Farm’s 70-year-old record of most victories, 12, at a Keeneland spring meet. To break the record, the Ramseys had five horses entered on April 29, including one in the first.

Farm manager Mark Partridge, trainer Wayne Catalano, children, and friends gathered in the saddling area as Live in Joy walked a circle around a young oak tree. The minute hand approached 1, but no sign of Ken Ramsey.

“He’s explaining to a secretary how he’s related to Prince William,” son Jeff reported. Sure enough, as horse and entourage moved to the paddock, the elder Ramsey appeared, confirming, “I watched my cousin get married.”

A genealogy enthusiast who says his ancestry traces to England’s Edward III, Ramsey had awoken at 4 that morning to watch the royal wedding. He feels a special kinship with the royal family, particularly after Queen Elizabeth II invited him to high tea in 2009 when one of his runners finished second at Royal Ascot. “I spent 35 minutes with the queen,” the Artemus, Ky.,  native recalled.

As the horses headed to the track for the first race, Ramsey said to one of the entourage, “I’m 75 years old, and let’s see if you can keep up with me!” With that he handed Jeff a couple of crisp C notes to bet the daily double, chatted with a racing fan from Chicago who called Ramsey a “hero,” then dashed to his box—but not before thanking a Keeneland attendant for a kindness earlier in the meet.

“There’s never a dull moment,” Partridge said with a chuckle.

Almost on cue Ramsey’s cell phone rang as he spread out his tip sheets. It was a telephone betting account clerk reminding Ramsey to place his wagers for the day. “I’ve been betting with both hands, and they’ve been coming in!” Ramsey said gleefully.

So had Ramsey runners at Keeneland, most of them by homebred stallion Kitten’s Joy, the champion turf horse of 2004 who stands at Ramsey Farm near Nicholasville, Ky. The Ramseys enjoyed a rare double April 23 when Holiday for Kitten won the Giant’s Causeway Stakes and one race later Derby Kitten took the Coolmore Lexington (gr. III). A late defection enabled Derby Kitten to enter the Kentucky Derby field as the 20th starter. He finished 13th.

No one can accuse Ramsey of not supporting his stallions. The entrepreneur, who has had successful careers in real estate, cellular telephone towers, radio, and horses, has 67 Kitten’s Joy offspring in training. All of them have “Kitten” or “Joy” in their names. Ramsey explained that Brereton C. Jones, owner of Airdrie Stud, once advised him to “put the stallion’s name on the good ones.”

“We’ve got Kitten this, and Kitten that for the better prospects. The ones we thought weren’t so good, we put Joy in their name,” he said.

Obviously, too many Kittens and Joys can cause confusion so this year only one prospect has a “Kitten” in its name “because I forgot and left out one of my granddaughters,” Ramsey said. “Our motto is we leave no child behind.”

The abundance of Kittens and Joys serves as a reminder of the Ramseys’ long union and, more poignantly, of Sarah’s only occasional appearances at the track since she suffered a stroke in 2007.

Ramsey likes to tell the story that he nicknamed his wife “Kitten” when they were dating. Later, when the couple got into racing and had separate racing stables, Sarah named her first runner Kitten’s First.

Unfortunately, the talented filly suffered an injury in a starting gate mishap and a veterinarian advised euthanasia. But Ramsey thought she could be saved, and so she was. However, Kitten’s First had such a difficult time as a broodmare that both Kitten’s Joy and Precious Kitten, a multiple graded stakes winner of nearly $2 million, were delivered by C-section.

Ramsey’s folksy ways and love of storytelling belie his fierce competitiveness. “I don’t like to lose. Second sucks,” he said.

When one of the day’s runners was entered as an also-eligible, Ramsey chastised the trainer, asking if he had dallied in sending in the paperwork. Well known for requiring his trainers to have a 20% win rate, Ramsey said he would keep a mental note of the oversight.

While admitting it would be a thrill to tie Calumet’s record, Ramsey also acknowledged, “You don’t want to set the bar too high because you want to come back and break it (the record) again.”
By the end of the day, though, Ramsey had to settle for two seconds from his battalion of five. In all, the Ramseys won 10 Keeneland races—nine of them with Kitten’s Joy offspring—just two shy of Calumet’s record.

“One day it’s chicken,” he said quizzically. “The next day it’s feathers.”

Feeling His Oatsees - By Ron Mitchell

aspradling — Tue, 03 May 2011 15:09:00 GMT

(Originally published in the May 7, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

Mike Lauffer is a connection of Kentucky Derby contender Shackleford.

When Mike Lauffer and partner Bill Cubbedge bought back a Forestry colt at the 2009 Keeneland September yearling sale, they thought long and hard before naming the newest member of their racing stable.

“We were thinking at the time he needs a good name, because with his pedigree he could possibly be a good horse some day,” recalled Lauffer, majority owner in the partnership that primarily breeds for the commercial market and races those that do not get sold in the auction ring.

They settled on Shackleford, so-named for the southernmost barrier island off the North Carolina coast that is home to feral horses that have inhabited the land for several hundred years. Lauffer said he and Cubbedge are frequent visitors to Shackleford Island.

Shackleford now has two wins and earnings of $271,666 in five career starts for trainer Dale Romans. The colt stamped his ticket to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) through the grade I Florida Derby, where he led throughout before giving up the lead late and finished second to Dialed In at 68-1 odds.
As commercial breeders, Lauffer and Cubbedge sometimes have to make difficult decisions. Although they wanted to keep Shackleford, they put him in the sale with what they thought was a reasonable reserve.

“We hated to sell him because he was a real nice horse from the start,” Lauffer said. “You have to keep some cash flowing in this business. We put him in the Keeneland sale with a $275,000 reserve and the last live bid we had was $250,000.”

So Shackleford became the first colt bought back by the partners, who historically have bought back fillies due to their greater residual value for breeding.
“You’re taking a big chance on colts,” said Lauffer, 57. “When you decide to keep a colt and race him, if he doesn’t win a lot of money at the track or become a stallion, chances are you’re going to lose a lot of money.”

Shackleford’s success typifies the owner’s experience since he became more active in the horse business in 2006.

A native of Paintsville, Ky., Lauffer first became attracted to horses while attending the races as a business and economics major at the University of Kentucky.
“I just loved to watch the horses and bet on them,” he said. “At that point, I never did think about one day owning a horse that’s going to be in the Kentucky Derby.”
Lauffer turned his attention instead to running his family’s oil and gas business, JML Oil & Gas. Lauffer is a third-generation oil and gas professional, and his father, Jim, is a petroleum engineer.

Lauffer became an owner in 2005 when he purchased 2% interest in a partnership put together by Marty Takacs, who operates Belvedere Farm near Paris, Ky. The farm is owned by Lauffer, his father, and partner Cubbedge and is leased to Takacs.

In 2006 Lauffer took a bigger plunge when, on the advice of Takacs and bloodstock agent Michael Miller, he and Cubbedge bought the Unbridled mare Oatsee for $135,000 at the Keeneland January sale.

It proved to be a most fortuitous purchase, as later that same week Baghdaria, Oatsee’s daughter sired by Royal Academy, won the Silverbulletday Stakes (gr. III). Oatsee’s value continued to improve as another of her daughters, Lady Joanne, a daughter of Orientate, won the Alabama Stakes (gr. I). Shackleford was the last foal Oatsee produced for Lauffer and Cubbedge because they sold her in foal to A.P. Indy for $1.55 million at the 2008 Keeneland November sale.

While Oatsee proved to be a financial windfall for Lauffer, his best decision came in late 2008 when he purchased half-interest in a promising 2-year-old named Rachel Alexandra for $500,000. For Lauffer and Dolphus Morrision, her breeder, Rachel Alexandra went on to win the Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) before being sold to the late Jess Jackson’s Stonestreet Stables and Harold McCormick for $10 million.

Of course, Rachel went on to establish herself as one of racing’s all-time great fillies, earning more than $3.5 million and being crowned 2009 Horse of the Year.
With successes such as Oatsee and Rachel Alexandra to his credit, Lauffer would appear to be an astute horseman. However, he credits others, including Takacs, Cubbedge, Romans, and the Webb Carroll Training Center in South Carolina where Shackleford was prepped for racing, for his success. Along with a large element of luck.
“I’m no expert by any means,” said the unassuming Lauffer. “We have just been very fortunate and very lucky. You try to position yourself to get lucky. I’ve had some friends and some good advisers in this business and that’s what’s important.”

Lauffer said he expects to have between 50-100 friends and family, including his wife, Kim, and children Seth, Will, and Clara, at the Derby.
“I watch the Derby every year, and it’s a great race. One thing is clear in horse racing: A good horse can come from anywhere. It doesn’t make a difference how big your stable is or how much money you throw into it. Anything’s possible in the horse business.”

Miss Doolittle - By Eric Mitchell

aspradling — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:58:00 GMT

(Originally published in the April 23, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

“Don’t give up on a mare with a great pedigree,” was one piece of advice offered recently by former breeder Madeleine Paulson Pickens. The philosophy sure applies to Miss Doolittle, the graded-placed dam of Dialed In, a son of Mineshaft who solidly appears now to own the title of favorite for the 2011 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I).

Pickens is the co-breeder of Dialed In along with William S. Farish of Lane’s End Farm and Skara Glen Stables. She is also the sole breeder of Miss Doolittle, whom she raced in partnership with Farish and Skara Glen.

As a broodmare, Miss Doolittle got off to a good start when her first foal became the stakes winner Broadway Gold. The 2002-model filly by Seeking the Gold won two of four starts as a 2-year-old including the Astoria Stakes at Belmont Park, which she won by three lengths over a field of five that would all go on to become either stakes winners or stakes-placed runners.
Her second foal, a Kingmambo gelding named Mambo Master, started 32 times but managed only a third-place finish in a minor stakes at Meadowlands as his best career performance. Mambo Master was followed by the gelding Hometown Boy (by Came Home), who earned a respectable $149,136 but never started in a stakes, and then by the Elusive Quality colt Backstabber, who won twice in five starts and earned $47,870.

By the time Dialed In was foaled in 2008, the blush was fading on the rose. The expectations for Miss Doolittle understandably would have been high, considering she is the daughter of 1992 champion 2-year-old and multiple grade I winner Eliza. Pickens’ late husband Allen Paulson raced Eliza, a brilliant daughter of Mt. Livermore who sealed her championship title by winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. I). As a 3-year-old, she won the Santa Anita Oaks (gr. I) and placed in the Santa Anita Derby (gr. I).

As a broodmare, however, Eliza has not produced a runner as talented as she. Out of 13 foals of racing age, she has eight winners that include two stakes-placed runners. Eliza’s most lucrative runner is Mr. Kevin, by Storm Cat, who raced in Japan and earned $728,607. Judged by racing class, Miss Doolittle, by Storm Cat, stands out as Eliza’s only graded stakes-placed runner.

Pickens said she always dismissed any comments that Eliza was not “producing anything.”

“When you are in breeding, you have to stay in it and stay the course,” she said. “You don’t know. Sometimes it is the last baby who is brilliant.”

After many years of racing and breeding top horses and after Dialed In had foaled in 2008, Pickens lost her enthusiasm for Thoroughbred breeding and let her share in Miss Doolittle pass to her partners. Miss Doolittle’s progeny had cooled sufficiently on the track that the mare was offered in foal to Curlin at the 2010 Keeneland November Breeding Stock sale, where she sold for $85,000 to Arindel Farm near Ocala, Fla. Just over two months later, lightning struck in the Holy Bull Stakes (gr. III) when Dialed In swept to an impressive last-to-first victory. His only other start had been in a maiden special weight, which he won at 2. Dialed In would go on to win the grade I Florida Derby in equally impressive fashion and secure a place in the gate of the 137th Kentucky Derby May 7.

Now Arindel owns a grade I producer who this year delivered a well-balanced chestnut daughter of Curlin that has two white socks on her back legs, just like her sire. Miss Doolittle has been confirmed back in foal to Mineshaft.

A throwback to the old classic-type mares, Miss Doolittle is not a big, robust mare nor is she small. She is about 16 hands and exudes class.

“There is a myth out there that if you are the breeder of a stakes horse, you are just as excited even if you no longer own the mare,” Pickens said. “That’s not true. I’m not breeding horses anymore, but if I were, I would wish I still owned the mare.”

Joyce Robsham - By Lenny Shulman

aspradling — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:23:00 GMT

(Originally published in the April 16, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)

Most owners or breeders would consider it a fine year if they could deposit three stakes victories into their accounts. Imagine, then, the tremendous weekend enjoyed by Joyce Robsham April 2-3 at Gulfstream Park, where she was on hand to witness three of her homebreds register graded stakes wins. Three homebreds, three graded stakes, two days.

“I’m still in shock,” she said four days after the feat.

R Heat Lightning got the party started with an 81⁄4-length victory in the Gulfstream Oaks (gr. II), stamping her ticket to the May 6 Kentucky Oaks (gr. I). The daughter of Trippi has already banked $952,800 in her eight-race career. On the same card 4-year-old filly Awesome Maria landed the Rampart Stakes (gr. III), marking the third season in a row that the daughter of Maria’s Mon has reeled in a stakes win. She has earned $602,375. A day later, Travelin Man completed the hat trick when he took the Swale Stakes (gr. II), the second triumph in three career races for the 3-year-old son of Trippi.

“It is really special when the homebreds step up, and I definitely enjoy it more when the ones I have bred win,” noted Robsham. “Amazingly, my homebreds have always run better than the sale purchases.”

Since the turn of the century, the Robsham operation has been consistently represented as breeder and owner by a parade of stakes winners. Most famously, Discreet Cat excelled in 2006, winning the Hill ‘n’ Dale Cigar Mile Handicap (gr. I) and the Jerome Breeders’ Cup Handicap (gr. II) on the way to earning better than $1.6 million in his career. Then in 2010 half brother Discreetly Mine came along, winning the Risen Star Stakes (gr. II) and taking Robsham to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I), where he ran unplaced. Discreetly Mine found his best stride at Saratoga, however, taking the King’s Bishop (gr. I) and Amsterdam stakes (gr. II) and earning nearly $800,000.

Much of the operation’s current success can be traced to 19-year-old Pretty Discreet who as, what else, a homebred for Einar Paul Robsham, Joyce’s late husband, won the 1995 Alabama Stakes (gr. I) before being retired to the broodmare band. The daughter of Private Account has produced not only Discreetly Mine (by Mineshaft) and Discreet Cat (by Forestry), but also unraced Discreetly Awesome, who is the dam of Awesome Maria. Pretty Discreet has also produced Pretty Wild, a Wild Again colt who was a multiple stakes winner of nearly $400,000, and graded stakes-placed Discreet Treasure.

“I have always been proud of Pretty Discreet, who has done nothing but bring me joy her whole life,” said Robsham. “Winning the Alabama was a great experience, and I couldn’t ask for more. Now she is going above and beyond producing babies that are able to race at the highest level. She is an amazing mare, and I love her dearly.”

Winner of the grade I Vosburgh Stakes at Belmont Park, Trippi is a stallion with whom the Robsham operation has had consistent success. When Mike O’Farrell’s Ocala Stud was in the process of purchasing the son of End Sweep for stud duty, Paul Robsham wanted in as a partner, and the Robshams bred consistently to him until he left for South Africa two years ago. Trippi’s Storm ran sixth in the 2007 NetJets Breeders’ Cup Mile (gr. IT) for the stable.

Robsham today owns 16 broodmares. Roughly half the broodmare band are homebreds and half were purchased at auction. She keeps a close eye on the breedings.

“I’ve always been interested in studying the pedigrees and have stayed involved,” Robsham noted. “The year we bred R Heat Lightning I knew Trippi was being sold, so I specifically requested that whichever mares crossed well with him were to go to him. Who knew what that crop would bring—R Heat Lightning, Travelin Man, and (Out Ruled Stakes winner) R Holiday Mood. There are still a couple from that crop that might show up yet in the stakes ranks.”

Yellow Heat, the dam of R Heat Lightning, was purchased by Paul Robsham for $145,000 out of the 2003 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s March 2-year-old sale from the consignment of Eddie Woods, agent. A year before the winning Gold Fever mare produced R Heat Lightning, she foaled a full sister, Hot Trip, who was stakes-placed before being retired to the Robsham broodmare band.

Asked what she liked best about racing, Robsham stated, “The horses. I just love the horses. On and off the track, I just want what’s best for the animal. You know a happy horse will always try harder. And if they are not competitive, then I retire them so they can go on to be trained by New Vocations (founded by the Robshams) to be a show horse. It’s not about the money for me; it’s about the horses. I enjoy them so much.”

And they seem to enjoy running for her.