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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
The 123-day season at Horseshoe Indianapolis, which begins Apr. 7, will feature 47 stakes races worth $4.95 million. Highlighting the season is the $300,000 GIII Indiana Derby and $200,000 GIII Indiana Oaks. The pair of graded races will be run on a July 11 card that features total purses over $1.1 million. “We have moved our Indiana Derby back one week this year, since its traditional place landed on July 4 this year,” said Horseshoe Indianapolis vice president and general manager of racing Eric Halstrom. “Our Indiana Derby has become a popular destination each July, and we wanted to ensure racing fans could enjoy the event. We had a record crowd and handle during last year's Derby with more than 5,000 in attendance and handle that exceeded $9 million, a new track record. We are already working on this year's event and plan to expand seating options trackside, in addition to elevating our indoor clubhouse experience.” Horseshoe Indianapolis will host the seventh annual Indiana Champions Day Saturday on Oct. 24. The afternoon program will include six Thoroughbred premier races followed by six Quarter Horse stakes with purses exceeding $1.1 million. For the complete stakes schedule, click here. The post Indiana Derby, Oaks Highlight Horseshoe Indianapolis Stakes Schedule appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
It's a tough old life. As we speak, David Redvers has just returned from a weekend in St Moritz for the White Turf meeting, one of the true spectacles of the horseracing world. Between racing on ice and dancing on tables, the Tweenhills maestro has been enjoying a rather good week for graduates from his farm on rather more conventional surfaces, from the turf at Caulfield to the Chantilly all-weather and dirt of Meydan. “We had the most incredible week last week in that we had Buckaroo, who came second in a Group 1 in Australia, and we had a winner every day of the week. Wonderful,” he says. “We had a smart maiden filly [Grande Baigneuse] win first time out in Chantilly that we bred. We had a nice horse called Blue Run by Nicky Henderson win a novice hurdle. It was just one of those weird weeks. Every day something else happened.” Zoustar may not have returned to Tweenhills last year or this, but the team there is still actively involved in the Australian stallion's career at Widden Stud in the Hunter Valley and of course takes pride in the exploits of his runners. He has had a good spell in the northern hemisphere of late. Zoustar's daughter Sky Safari came out on top in a competitive running of the G3 Winter Derby on Saturday – a race won last year by Royal Champion (Shamardal), who on the previous weekend had won the G1 Howden Neom Turf Cup on the Saudi Cup card. Sky Safari's win came the afternoon after a decent double for the stallion. First Sir Les Patterson, bred by Widden at Tweenhills, won comfortably at Dundalk, his fifth win pushing his mark to 107 and presumably some future outings in black-type company. Ninety minutes later the Redvers-bred Brotherly Love won the Listed Dubai Road to the Kentucky Derby, claiming his second win of the current Dubai Racing Carnival and following in some notable family footsteps. The three-year-old is likely to be seen next in the G2 UAE Derby in which his half-brother Heart Of Honor (AP Honor) was just touched off to finish second by a nose last year. Heart Of Honor is now a four-time winner at Meydan, including at Listed level, and he was last seen finishing a running-on third in the G1 Al Maktoum Challenge. He is set to reappear this weekend in the G2 Al Maktoum Classic on Super Saturday. But just in case it all sounds like things are going a little too swimmingly, there is a twist in the tale. Ruby Love, the Chilean-bred dam of Heart Of Honor and Brotherly Love, died last year after foaling a colt by another Tweenhills resident, Kameko. “It's all a bit tinged with sadness,” Redvers says. “I bought Ruby Love carrying Heart of Honor for, I think, $90,000. She was champion two-year-old filly in Chile and by Scat Daddy. I was looking for a precocious, speedy mare for a Zoustar at the time and I just thought she sounded too exciting, really, to leave at that sort of money.” He adds, “She had one of those torsion colics post-foaling. God, and we tried everything but, sadly, she couldn't be saved. It just goes to show the nightmare that is breeding horses.” David Redvers, breeder of Heart Of Honor and Brotherly Love | Racingfotos The mare had produced two foals prior to being bought by Redvers, the filly Unrelenting Love (Violence), who was placed in America, and the unraced Al Munthir (Lookin At Lucky). Her only other daughter, by Havana Grey, is a two-year-old named Hart Of The Matter who is now listed as in training with Karl Burke. Redvers adds, “There's always a bit of a high risk when you buy a mare that's had a couple that haven't really been seen. But one of them I discovered had got travel sickness, going from America to Bahrain. So I just thought it was worth the chance. “Heart Of Honor himself was a beautiful horse but by a stallion that nobody had the first idea what he was. The Halleys bought him as a foal [for 35,000gns]. He made everybody money all the way through.” Reoffered as a yearling at the Goffs Orby Sale, Heart Of Honor sold for €42,000 from Galbertstown Stables and he then returned to the Arqana Breeze-up Sale in the Meadowview Stables draft and was bought by his trainer Jamie Osborne for $160,000 on behalf of owners Jim and Claire Bryce. Osborne clearly liked what he saw from the colt as a week before he made his debut at Southwell on October 21, 2024, the trainer had raided the Tweenhills draft at Tattersalls October Book 2 to buy Brotherly Love for the same owners for 40,000gns. Redvers says, “Since then the pedigree has improved. Heart of Honour did all his winning afterwards. [The mare] had a nice Havana Grey filly, which we sold far too cheaply to Matt Coleman before anything had won, but I just absolutely loved her. I believe Matt bought her for a breeder and they've been offered fortunes for her but wouldn't sell.” The Bryces have subsequently returned to the well to buy Ruby Love's Kameko yearling colt privately from Redvers. “At least she was a great success story, though she could have been a much bigger success story,” he says of the mare. Redvers will be hoping for a success story of a different kind when it comes to the new Tweenhills stallion King Of Change, whose arrival in England was announced on January 2. “He's gone down a bomb,” he reports enthusiastically. “He's very busy, covering away like a star. “It's a surprisingly tough year commercially in the UK this year, with three new first-season sires in Newmarket, and bringing him into the market so late put him at a massive disadvantage. The breeders who do their homework, who look at the data and are looking for stallions that give them a proven edge, have all flocked to him. He's also got a lot of support coming in from Ireland as well. His fans are utterly committed and have seen a little bit of magic he can bring, so it's very exciting. “I look out in my front yard at the moment and there are two pretty exceptional horses. One of them is a QEII winner and the other is a 2,000 Guineas winner.” Whether or not Brotherly Love can line up for a Classic of a different kind remains to be seen. He has already earned points towards the Kentucky Derby and could yet increase his balance on Dubai World Cup day in the UAE Derby. And we know that his connections won't shirk a challenge as Heart Of Honor contested last year's Preakness Stakes, in which he finished fifth, staying on well after a tardy start, as is often his way. “The extraordinary thing is their style of running is almost identical,” Redvers says of the brothers. “If you backed Brotherly Love in running the last couple of times, he would have been 5o-to-1 during most of the race. I mean, he just doesn't look like he's even at the races and then he suddenly comes with this incredible late rattle. And Heart Of Honor is the same, so it gives the trainer and the owner and the breeder a bit of a heart attack. “But anyway, it's worth it in the end. I'm thrilled for Jim and Claire. It's been great and the journey isn't over yet.” The post ‘The Journey Isn’t Over Yet’: Redvers on the Bittersweet Success of Siblings Heart Of Honor and Brotherly Love appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
The Jockey Club will distribute 100 microchip scanners this week to aftercare organizations to facilitate the identification of Thoroughbreds, TJC announced in a press release Tuesday. Approximately 400 additional scanners will be distributed in the coming months. “We are providing these scanners as a service to the industry to help aftercare organizations and others identify Thoroughbreds and report whereabouts information, which will greatly benefit our traceability efforts,” said Kristin Werner, deputy general counsel and director of Industry Initiatives, The Jockey Club. “These scanners work with the ID My Thoroughbred app, which was released last week through the App store and Google Play.” Stacie Clark Rogers, operations consultant for the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, added, “The ability to identify Thoroughbreds quickly and accurately, especially in sanctuary situations, is vital for aftercare organizations to find the best options for horses in their care. We are grateful for The Jockey Club instituting this initiative.” An online form is available to request a free microchip scanner. Forms must be submitted by Apr. 1. The post The Jockey Club Distributes Free Microchip Scanners appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Okay, so probably we're just running these animals in sufficient circles for the squeaking of the hamster wheel eventually, randomly, to yield something that seems curiously meaningful. But there are times when horses give the impression that they are participating in some mysterious wider scheme in human affairs. Last week, however inadequately, I joined the many in our community grieving the abrupt loss of one of its great horsemen, and gentlemen. The very next day, at Fair Grounds, a colt saturated with the legacy of John Shirreffs missed Olympiad's track record by the narrowest possible margin in routing an allowance field by seven lengths. The resulting speed figures confirmed a GI Kentucky Derby trial to be imperative for Reagan's Honor (Honor A.P.), and you can but wonder whether somebody up there–though barely installed–is watching over a horse who combines so much of his own work with the skills of those missing him most. Be all that as it may, here we only have a page to consider! This time, however, I want to start with the sire. That's because Honor A.P. is doing something pretty heroic here. He stands, unmistakably, in an hour of need. But until more people finally wake up to his potential, as they never did during his first career, he's having to do the hard yards himself. Last spring, with a single crop of juveniles behind him, he received just 19 mares. It was hardly as though he had ever been very likely to produce a bunch of maiden winners at Keeneland in April. But with some maturity behind them, Honor A.P. has actually assembled his eight stakes scorers at a clip superior to every other stallion in a competitive intake. He has still only fielded 99 starters, half as many as Authentic (216), Vekoma (201) and McKinzie (200). Only Complexity, who has punched above weight throughout, can match Honor A.P.'s 6.1% black-type winners to named foals, his dozen coming at an even 6%. And the soaraway Vekoma is just a whisker behind (19 at 5.7%). But the rest of the top 10 (by this measure) comprises Tiz The Law (13 at 4.6%, apparently good enough to warrant 274 mares in 2025), Thousand Words (eight at 3.7), Win Win Win (three at 3.0), McKinzie (nine at 2.8), Volatile (seven at 2.7), Authentic (eight at 2.4) and Instagrand (five at 2.1). Honor A.P. beat the Horse of the Year on merit, the only time he got a clean run at him, while for a son of Honor Code to bring $850,000 as a yearling tells you everything about his shimmering physique (though a millionaire, Grade I-winning dam also helped). His unfortunate derailment essentially left the horse with unfinished business, but these things become self-fulfilling. Honor A.P. started at one-fifth of his big rival's fee, had a fairly old-fashioned debut book of 110, and must now fight his way out of a corner at just $7,500. While Margie's Intention (GII Black-Eyed Susan Stakes) for now remains his only graded stakes winner, his debut crop also includes A.P. Kid, sidelined after winning the Pennine Ridge Stakes by six lengths; and Heart Of Honour (GB), who missed the G2 U.A.E. Derby by a nose last year. Among his newly minted sophomores, meanwhile, Hollywood Import has won consecutive stakes at Laurel this winter, while Counting Stars did the same at Oaklawn. Romeo disappeared after the GI Hopeful, but had certainly impressed in the Bashford Manor. And now we have Reagan's Honor, as yet not even a stakes winner, but potentially best of the lot. John Shirreffs | Sarah Andrew His maternal family carries the sublime touch of Shirreffs no less than his sire. The colt was co-bred by his stepson David Ingordo and long-standing patron Jerry Moss, for whom Shirreffs trained the dam's half-brothers Giacomo and Tiago to win the GI Kentucky Derby and GI Santa Anita Derby, respectively. Those had been among eight males in the first 10 named foals out of Set Them Free (Stop the Music), a triple stakes-winning sprinter (dirt and turf) purchased as a 2-year-old for just $45,000 by her trainer Brian Mayberry. (Whose family, of course, played their part–along with Ingordo–in giving this program its finest hour with Zenyatta). It was a blessing, then, that Set Them Free consented to deliver three fillies among her final four named foals. Middle of these was Rutile (Medaglia d'Oro), who tested even the famous patience of Shirreffs in making a single start at ages four, five and six! But you could see why everyone had persevered when she won on debut in 1:10 flat. Rutile has evidently required patience in her second career, too. There's a poignant three-year interval between her first foal, a son of Quality Road who made $950,000 as a yearling, and the $140,000 Honor A.P. colt bought by West Point Thoroughbreds alongside Ingordo's daughter Reagan at the 2024 Keeneland September Sale. The Quality Road ended up winning under a $5,000 tag at Penn National, but brought the money he did with a legitimate stallion's page. For Set Them Free's daughters have played an ample part, alongside Giacomo and Tiago, in the page now decorated by Reagan's Honor. One became a graded stakes winner, another was Grade II-placed, and a third is granddam of the flying Nashville, now at WinStar. Set Them Free herself, incidentally, represents a strong European family. She was out of a half-sister to the dam of Baiser Vole (Foolish Pleasure), a champion juvenile and Classic winner in France. In other words, it's all there on paper. All that remains to be discovered is whether some benign hand is directing the celestial traffic. Volatile Consequences of Synthetic Route Whatever alienation you might perceive between the corporate interests of Churchill Downs and those held dear by certain others in the industry, the loading of Derby starting points into another of its tracks is a perfectly understandable strategy. But it is worth wondering, A) whether the synthetic Turfway program, in the long term, might materially alter the kind of horses that can make the Derby gate; B) how that may alter the character of the race, and therefore of the type of horse we breed to get there. Already Turfway has produced Final Gambit (Not This Time) and Two Phil's (Hard Spun) as prominent supporting players in the Derby since Rich Strike (Keen Ice). In some ways, favoring synthetic performers takes to a new level the elimination of raw dirt speed from the race. In the old days, trainers used one-turn races to sharpen and condition Classic prospects. Now that trainers run horses so sparingly, they won't do that when they also need starting points. Great White | Coady Media Mind you, Great White (Volatile) evidently drew on some pretty wholesome reserves in banking 20 points in the John Battaglia Stakes. If his sales provenance is unusual, a $55,000 yearling out of a Fasig-Tipton digital sale, so is the way his sire's speed has been balanced by second and fourth dams who both won the G1 Premio Diana, or Brazilian Oaks. The earlier of those, Sweet Eternity (Brz) (Effervescing), was imported to California, but repatriated by Stud TNT–whose work Great White extends into a fourth consecutive generation. Sweet Eternity's dam and granddam each had wholly indigenous parentage. The names mean zilch to me, and I have no idea whether they condense the kind of robust genes we so often admire in South American pedigrees. Even if they do, however, the family has meanwhile been seeded by plenty of U.S. commercial speed, with the three dams below Sweet Eternity, respectively, by Woodman, Elusive Quality and Uncle Mo. Volatile certainly contributes more of the same. He now has four graded stakes winners, all from his debut crop. Speed King banked Derby points in the GIII Southwest Stakes last year, but lived up to his name by returning to sprinting for his only win since. His trainer feels that Great White will handle distance, and we must respect that, given the fine job he has done with inexpensive horses. Returning to our earlier point, however, it's worth noting that his Epic Ride (Blame) reserved his big payday for turf at Kentucky Downs last year. If the Turfway trials continue to produce horses of that type, a Derby already shorn of pure dirt speed will continue to evolve in another direction. Gone but Not Forgotten Before departing for Korea, where he sadly died, Preservationist was one of the most culpably neglected young sires I've seen. Having duly left only a few horses behind, to preserve his legacy, he nonetheless managed a startling posthumous flourish at Laurel last Saturday. Peach Tie's second stakes success took him to five wins in six; while Bring the Smoke's 18-length maiden score was nationally the second fastest of the week (91 Beyer). It may yet be, then, that the $2,500 yearling Chunk of Gold (earnings to date $893,311) and Grade I-winning millionaire Antiquarian will not represent Preservationist's last word. Not that even I can pretend that bad luck and judgement together denied Preservationist some breed-shaping influence. For that, we make our compulsory weekly visit to La Troienne (Fr). Latest to mark the matriarch's centenary is Fairy Glen (Fr) (Farhh {GB}), a Group 2 winner in Dubai. Her fifth dam is the great Allez France (Sea-Bird {Fr}), who was out of a granddaughter of La Troienne's daughter Big Hurry. The post Breeding Digest: Timely Memorial to a Man of Honor appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Sprinters–dirt and turf–dominated the week's best female performances. 5–KAPOOR, GP, 2-19, Alw, 6f (VIDEO) Beyer Speed Figure-90 (f, 4, Uncle Mo–Kareena, by Medaglia d'Oro) O/B-Godolphin (Ky). T-Bill Mott. J-Taylor Kingsley. Kapoor has rolled to three consecutive frontrunning sprint wins by a combined 14 1/4 lengths, and she practically snuck into this allowance in the cover of darkness: the conditions were for non-winners of $20k once other than maiden/claiming, and her winners' take from a Tampa allowance score four weeks earlier was $19,175. As expected, the Godolphin pedigree is strong, especially from the Beyer angle. Dam Kareena recorded Beyers of 96 and 98 in her brief career, and second dam India once had back-to-back Beyers of 100 and 103. 4–GRATEFULLY, SA, 2-21, Wishing Well S., 6fT (VIDEO) Beyer Speed Figure-91 (f, 4, Laoban–Selflessly, by More Than Ready) O-Adelphi Racing Club and Shelly and Russell Hume. B-WinStar Farm. T- Rob Falcone. J-Florent Geroux. Matt Cutair and his Adelphi partners had a 2 1/2 hours to remember Saturday, striking first with unbeaten Gratefully after a Santa Anita stretch duel and again 2,700 miles away with Twirling Beauty (below). Gratefully has now survived three “gut checks” during her 5-for-5 career launch. She's the first foal of Selflessly, a two-time GSW for Seth Klarman and Chad Brown. WinStar acquired Selflessly following her racing career, bred her to Laoban, then sold mother and daughter–Selflessly, first for $875k to Ireland's Barronstown Stud and Gratefully the following year for a bargain $155k as a yearling to Adelphi. 3–TWIRLING BEAUTY, AQU, 2-21, Alw, 6f (VIDEO) Beyer Speed Figure-91 (f, 4, Twirling Candy–Strategic Dreams, by Archarcharch) O-Adelphi Racing Club, Anthony Amarosa, Shelly and Russell Hume and Anthony Peters Jr. B-WinStar Farm. T-David Duggan. J-Ricardo Santana. The excitement of Gratefully's victory at even-money odds still hadn't subsided for Adelphi and the Humes when Twirling Beauty unexpectedly came through as the 12-1 longest shot in a five-horse allowance field. By contrast, her win had few tense moments as she opened up through the lane by 5 1/2 lengths. Also a $150k yearling buy as the first foal of a two-time stakes winner, her racing resume isn't as accomplished as her stablemate, but that 91 Beyer is equally strong. 2–HAULIN ICE, OP, 2-20, Downthedustyroad Breeders' S., 6f (VIDEO) Beyer Speed Figure-98 (m, 5, Coal Front–She's Smoke, by Half Ours) O-C2 Racing Stable, WSS Racing and Agave Racing Stable. B-Eugenia Thompson-Benight (Ark). T-Saffie Joseph. J-Francisco Arrieta. As a two-time GSW, she can hang with the big girls. But a free square against Arkansas-breds for a $150k purse is too enticing to pass. Haulin Ice has won this race in back-to-back years by a combined 17 3/4 lengths, and this one put her over $1 million in earnings. C2's Mark and Clint Cornett (White Abarrio) bought her from the breeders after her fifth start. She RNA'd in October for $875k in a digital auction after which Bill and Tammy Simon and Agave's Mark Martinez bought out C2's three previous partners. 1–SHINING STAR, FG, 2-17, Mardi Gras S., 5 1/2fT (VIDEO) Beyer Speed Figure-103 (m, 5, Saraha Spirit–Green Power {Chi}, by Dublin {Ire}) O-Sumaya U.S. Stable. B-Haras Sumaya. T-Brad Cox. J-Jose Ortiz. Fair Grounds has hosted more than its share of powerful turf sprinters–Shining Star's dominant score marked the 10th triple-digit Beyer in a 5 1/2-furlong turf dash during the track's last five seasons. Since Cox switched her to turf last fall, the Oussama Aboughazale owned-and-bred mare is 3-for-3 by an average margin of 5 1/4 lengths. Aboughazale stands unraced Tapit stallion Saraha Spirit (half-brother to Giant's Causeway stallion Protonico) in Chile. Notably, he's out of Wild Spirit, who Aboughazale imported in 2003 to win the GI Ruffian Stakes with trainer Bobby Frankel. And speaking of triple-digit Beyers, five of Wild Spirit's six American starts featured figs of 110, 109, 109 and 106. The post Five Fleet Fillies of the Week, Feb. 16-22 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article
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