Posts Tagged ‘Parading’

Even with no Grade 1 races offered this weekend, there are still a number of competitive graded stakes to be run in Kentucky and New York. Keeneland closes its meet on Saturday with the running of the G3 Fayette, for three-year-olds and up going 1 1/8 miles over the Polytrack surface. Vying for favoritism will be Blame, coming off a second-place effort in Louisiana’s G2 Super Derby, and the Shug McGaughey-trained Parading, who comes back to Kentucky after a California campaign that yielded off-the-board finishes in three Grade 1 events. Parading won the Ben Ali (G3) this year at Keeneland’s spring meet. Medjool and Giant Oak have scratched.

Churchill Downs opens its doors on Sunday and the spotlight will be on juveniles in two Grade 3 stakes, the Pocahontas, for fillies, and the Iroquois, for colts and geldings. Both races are one-turn miles on the dirt. There are no stand-outs in the contentious Pocahontas field, but look for good showings from Sassy Image, Tiz Miz Sue and Happy Week. Running Bride is three-for-three at Hoosier Park which also makes her a factor here. 

The Iroquois is also wide open; the morning line favorite at 4-1 is Dublin, trained by Wayne Lukas. Dublin won the Hopeful (G1) but ran fifth out of six starters as the odds-on favorite in the Champagne (G1). Uh Oh Bango and Three Day Rush are coming off minor stakes wins.

Racing changed venues in New York this week and the Aqueduct graded stakes schedule includes Sunday’s G3 Long Island Handicap, for fillies and mares, three years old and up at 1 ½ miles on grass. In the field of seven, Tom Albertrani’s trainee, Criticism, is the one to beat. The 5-year-old daughter of Machiavellian has three wins this year, all performed in wire-to-wire fashion. Most recently, she finished second to Pure Clan in the prestigious Flower Bowl Invitational Handicap. This is expected to be Criticism’s final race before heading to the breeding shed.

By Ray Paulick
Anyone who has been with us at the Paulick Report since our June 2008 launch knows that I have been critical of Ogden Mills Phipps as one of the Thoroughbred industry’s leaders, or to borrow a phrase from the late John Gaines, a “self-appointed guardian of the Turf.”

One thing I’ve never questioned in my own mind, though I probably have never written it here, is that the Jockey Club chairman better known as “Dinny” loves this industry as much as anyone and has always acted in what he believes to be in the industry’s best interests. What those actions are and have been is where he and I hit the fork in the road.

This has been a tough year, personally, for Dinny Phipps as he has battled some health problems, and if the old axiom is true that the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man, I’m sure I’m not alone in wishing the Phipps Stable continued success in 2009 and beyond. That stable, carefully developed over generations of both horses and the family that has owned and bred them, is quietly having a very good year in terms of success in American Graded Stakes, with three AGS winners of four graded stakes. Sure, it’s not quite like 1988, when Dinny’s late father, Ogden Phipps, directed the stable to one of the most amazing years in racing history, when Personal Ensign, Easy Goer, Cadillacing and other Grade 1 winners carried private trainer Shug McGaughey and the Phipps family to a sweep of the Eclipse Awards in outstanding trainer, breeder and owner categories. Five years later, McGaughey won five Grade 1 races on the Jockey Club Gold Cup card at Belmont Park, led by Miner’s Mark’s triumph in the Gold Cup itself.

The three 2009 Phipps Stable AGS winners (Parading, by Pulpit; Vacation, by Dynaformer; and Gone Astray, by Dixie Union) put this relatively small but select outfit in a four-way tie for third with three other homebreeding operations ( as opposed to commercial breeders), Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley Stable; the Juddmonte Stable of Saudi Arabian Prince Khalid Abdullah; and the stable operated by Virginia-based Edward P. “Ned” Evans. The leader, with five AGS winners of 2009, is Robert and Janice McNair’s Stonerside Stable.
I don’t really think it’s any coincidence that the leading breeders of AGS winners are outfits designed to produce horses for the racetrack as opposed to the sale ring. Are there any lessons that commercial breeders can gain by more closely studying how these private operations have functioned, developed their broodmare bands, and plan their matings? Perhaps.

Looking at Bloodhorse.com’s list of leading breeders by money won, Stonerside ranks the highest of the five leaders by AGS winners at fifth on the money list behind Adena Springs, Eugene Melnyk, Brereton Jones, and William S. Farish. Stonerside, which was sold to Darley when the McNairs opted to get out of the business, also has the most starts of the five (604). Evans is sixth on the money list from 437 starts; Juddmonte is eighth, with 217 starts; Darley is 11th, with 423 starts; and Phipps 22nd, with 206 starts.