Posts Tagged ‘cowboy cal’

The upcoming long holiday weekend provides an opportunity for three tracks–Hollywood Park, Aqueduct and Churchill Downs—to run a combined total of 16 graded stakes, many with entrants coming out of the Breeders’ Cup Championships held earlier this month at Santa Anita.

Churchill Downs has carded the 1 1/8-mile G2 Falls City as the 11th of 12 races on Thursday. Unbridled Belle hopes to go out a winner before she heads for the breeding shed. The 6-year-old mare has accumulated almost $1.9 million in earnings and will face off against another millionaire, Swift Temper, who has gotten the best of Unbridled Belle in their three previous meetings this year.

Friday’s feature race, the G2 Clark Handicap, has attracted a stellar field of competitors, including Macho Again, Bullsbay, Etched, Blame and Einstein, the highweight in the 1 1/8-mile dirt event. The 7-year-old will start from the far outside post (14) in what will be the 30th and final race of his career. With regular rider Julien Leparoux in Japan, Rajiv Maragh will take over in the irons. The G3 River City Handicap (race 9) at 1 1/8 miles on the turf, is on the undercard.

Churchill’s meet closes on Saturday with the running of twin G2 stakes, the Golden Rod for fillies, and the Kentucky Jockey Club for colts and geldings. Sassy Image, winner of the opening weekend’s Pocahontas Stakes, as well as the runner-up in that race, Decelerator, are expected to start. The upset winner of the Iroquois, Thiskyhasnolimit, is the 2-1 favorite in the field of nine in the Kentucky JC. Both races are 1 1/16 miles on the main track.

Aqueduct hosts the G3 Fall Highweight on Thursday, the G2 Top Flight Handicap on Friday, and a quartet of graded stakes on Saturday, highlighted by the G1 Hill ‘n’ Dale Cigar Mile. Pyro, winner of the Forego and Kodiak Kowboy, victor of the Vosburgh, are co-highweights at 120 lbs. They will be facing DeFrancis winner Vineyard Haven, Bribon and Driven By Success. With the coupling of Pyro and Vineyard Haven, there will be only four betting interests.

Also on the Aqueduct’s Saturday card is the running of the 1 1/8-mile G1 Gazelle for 3-year-old fillies. Stardom Bound will be in the spotlight here; she had a string of five consecutive G1 wins to her credit, before finishing third in the Ashland in April. This will be her first start on the dirt. The other two graded stakes will focus on juveniles–the G2 Demoiselle for fillies, and the G2 Remsen for males, both run at 1 1/8 miles on the dirt. The winners of these races may be pointing to a race on the first Saturday in May next year.

The G1 Citation kicks off the three-day Hollywood Park Turf Festival on Friday and features a field of ten older horses going 1 1/16 miles. Cowboy Cal, winner of the Oak Tree Mile, will attempt to redeem himself in the Citation after a 10th-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. Proudinsky and Fluke, also entered in the Citation, will both be saddled by Bobby Frankel’s long-time assistant Humberto Ascanio, who is now the trainer of record for the late Hall of Famer’s starters.

Saturday’s Hollywood stakes are the G1 Matriarch for fillies and mares going a mile on grass, supported by the G3 Generous, for two-year-olds, also at a mile. The Matriarch pits two outstanding mares against each other—Ventura and Diamondrella. Both were last seen at the Breeders’ Cup; Ventura was second in the Filly & Mare Sprint, while Diamondrella ran a disappointing 11th in the Turf Sprint. Following the Breeders’ Cup, Diamondrella changed barns and is now with jockey-turned-trainer Gary Stevens.

Hollywood’s Turf Festival concludes on Sunday with the running of the G1 Hollywood Derby and the G3 Miesque (a mile for 2-year-old fillies). In the 1 ¼-mile Hollywood Derby, we can expect to see Take the Points square off against Battle of Hastings. Another intriguing entry is Black Bear Island. Now with Julio Canani, the son of Sadler’s Wells was previously conditioned by Aiden O’Brien.

By Ray Paulick
I make no apologies for my dissent with Eclipse Award voting results in the outstanding breeder category on at least three different occasions in the years since the vote was taken away from a six-member committee and given to the larger group of voters that determine the other Eclipse Award winners–members of the National Turf Writers Association, Daily Racing Form staff and racing secretaries at National Thoroughbred Racing Association tracks and select Breeders’ Cup employees.

When that decision was made earlier this decade, the NTRA might as well have said it would give the annual award to the breeder whose horses earned the most money. It’s gone to Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs Farm each of the last five years, whether the operation had a truly good year or not, simply because he dominated the money standings by breeding the most horses and winning the most money. I’m not knocking Stronach, who has built a breeding empire and deserved the Eclipse Award in years that he produced champions and a number of high-quality, graded stakes-winning racehorses. His success in those years didn’t happen by accident or through sheer numbers. Adena Springs has been a top-class operation, and it’s something for which Stronach should be proud.

However, I disagree that the breeder who wins the most money should automatically win the Eclipse Award in that category, something that is now occurring routinely. Voters have done a great disservice in recent years to individuals who have had incredible success with a far smaller number of mares.

Full disclosure: I served on that six-member Eclipse Award outstanding breeder committee as editor of Blood-Horse magazine, as did Mark Simon, editor of Thoroughbred Times, along with two editors with expertise in bloodstock matters at Daily Racing Form and two representatives of the NTRA or its Eclipse Awards-sponsoring predecessor, the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America. The committee would be presented with a wide array of breeding statistics, have the opportunity to study them, then meet via teleconference to discuss the merits of the leading candidates before taking a vote. In my opinion, the committee got it right far more often than the general Eclipse Award electorate has when determining outstanding breeder.

The committee tended to discount breeders who had simply led the money list. That cost the late Harry T. Mangurian an Eclipse Award several years when he or his Florida-based Mockingbird Farm led the list by earnings from 1999-2002. When some Floridians cried “foul,” the Eclipse Award steering committee gave Mangurian an Eclipse Award of Merit at the 2002 Eclipse Awards dinner. Shortly thereafter, the vote went from committee to the larger body, which I think was a mistake.

Why was it a mistake? Twice in the last seven years, breeders who produced two of the 10 Eclipse Award champions—with a small number of broodmares—didn’t even get enough votes to be among the three finalists as outstanding breeder, much less win the Eclipse Award. That happened in 2002, when Virginia Kraft Payson bred champions Farda Amiga and Vindication and wasn’t a finalist, and again in 2004 when Aaron and Marie Jones bred champions Speightstown and Ashado and were ignored by the voters.

Think about that for a minute. You are a breeder with a relatively small group of mares and produced two out of the 10 Eclipse Award champion horses. Yet you weren’t even recognized as one of the three outstanding breeders in North America. That is an insult to all breeders who work hard to produce a good horse. Eclipse Award voters really should be ashamed for their ignorance or lack of interest on breeding matters.

Last year, Adena won its fifth consecutive Eclipse Award as leading breeder by a wide margin—receiving 139 votes, more than twice as many as runner-up Stonerside Stable. Adena won the most money, by far, $19.2 million, but produced no champions. With far fewer runners, Stonerside-bred horses earned $8.5 million but included 2-year-old male champion Midshipman and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Raven’s Pass.

That brings us to this week’s spotlight on leading breeders on our weekly feature, American Graded Stakes Standings, brought to you by Keeneland. Stonerside–the Paris, Ky., operation founded by Robert and Janice McNair and sold last year to Sheikh Mohammed when Robert McNair said he needed to spend more time on his Houston Texans of the National Football League team–is the leading breeder of American graded stakes winners, with five, led by Grade 1 winner Santa Teresita. The others are Grade 2 winners Tizaqueena, Skylighter and Cowboy Cal, along with Grade 3 winner Stormalory.

Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley, Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms, and Edward P. Evans are next in the list of breeders of American graded stakes winners, with three apiece.

Stronach’s Adena Springs, which is the leading breeder by money won so far this year, with $7,054,476 earned from 2,322 starts, has bred just one graded stakes winner, the Grade 3 winner My Princess Jess. Stonerside has had 481 starts and earnings of $3,252,001, ranking fifth by money won. Evans has had 360 starts and ranks sixth with earnings of $2,936,973; Juddmonte is 18th with $1,948,227 from 175 starts; and Darley is 19th with $1,943,075 from 328 starts.

In terms of money won per start, which I think is a good overall indication of quality, of those listed above, Juddmonte is the leader, with $11,323 earned for each start; followed by Evans, $8,158/start; Stonerside, $6,760/start; Darley, $5,924/start; and Adena, $3,038/start. Those statistics include international racing. The lists presented below strictly represent American graded stakes, those approximately 500 races designated by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association’s American Graded Stakes Committee as the best races in the United States.

We hope that by focusing each week on the leading breeders, owners, trainers, sires, sale companies and consignors of the winners of American graded stakes, which define the best races in the United States, Eclipse Award voters might start to look beyond the simple exercise of seeing which breeder earned the most money in a given year.