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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
The John Forbes Memorial, a two-mile flat race to be run Saturday at the Far Hills, New Jersey hunt meet isn't for every horse. The horse needs to be able to handle the grueling distance of two miles and carry as much as 148 pounds. But there are plenty of trainers who believe their horses can handle the test. A race that is getting better every year, the $150,000 race attracted 14 entries, including Thoroughbreds from the stables of Mike Maker, Christophe Clement, Graham Motion and Peter Eurton. The Forbes Memorial is named in honor of longtime New Jersey-based trainer John Forbes. Forbes's widow, Vicki, is the Thoroughbred Daily News's Director of Customer Service. She will present the trophy to the winning connections. This will be its third running and once again the race is an interesting handicapping puzzle. There are flat horses trying to prove they can go the distance, there are jumpers trying to prove they are fast enough to beat some decent flat horses and there's an entry from Gordon Elliott, one of the premier jump trainers in the U.K. McLovin | Sarah Andrew “The main difference this year is that we bumped the purse from $100,000 to $150,000,” said National Steeplechase Association Director of Racing Bill Gallo. “That ended up being fairly significant because, as you can see from the entries, it attracted a stellar field. I certainly think the additional $50,000 caught their attention and last year might have had an impact because Rodolphe Brisset, a flat trainer, sent in a horse (McLovin) from Kentucky and won it. We did some recruiting, too, talking to some of the flat trainers when we were in Saratoga.” The 8-5 morning-line favorite is the Graham Motion-trained The Grey Wizard (Ire) (Caravaggio), the winner of this year's GII Belmont Gold Cup Stakes, also a two-mile grass race. “I think it's a great idea,” Motion said. “My background is in steeplechasing and for me to support them is important. I appreciate the crossover.” Motion is not taking the race lightly. “I thought the horse (California Frolic) that won at Monmouth last time is a very good horse,” Motion said. “You've also got Dean Martini, who won the Japan Cup at Laurel last time out on the dirt and is a nice horse. So I don't think it's a gimme by any means. But I imagine he will be the favorite.” Motion will be riding Parker Hendriks, who is fourth in the National Steeplechase standings. “Parker has galloped the horse for me and he worked him last Saturday, so he's familiar with the horse,” Motion said. “Some familiarity with how things work is not a bad thing. It's definitely a toss-up (between and jump and flat jockey) but since Parker has been on the horse I thought that was the right way to go.” John Forbes Stakes | Sarah Andrew Three others have named flat jockeys, including Jose D'Angelo, who has given the assignment on Gilded Age (Medaglia d'Oro) to Pedro Cotto, Jr. The 5-year-old has never gone beyond a mile-and-three sixteenths. “He's well-bred to go long and he's much better on the grass,” D'Angelo said. “The distance can help him. It's not an easy spot. There are some quality horses in this race. Pedro fits this horse well and fits his style of running and that's why I named him on the horse. They always say anytime you make it to the starting gate you're in with a chance. Now, for this, there's not even a starting gate.” Joe Sharp actually named himself to ride Tide of the Sea (English Channel), but reports that the horse will be scratched. “I was ready to do it,” he said. “Hopefully, he can make this race next year and I will ride him.” The Far Hills card is topped by the GI American Grand National. It has a purse of $250,000 and is widely considered the most prestigious race on the steeplechase circuit. The 8-5 morning-line favorite is Snap Decision (Hard Spun), who began his career for Shug McGaughey. He's 2-for-3 this year with a win in the GI Iroquois Stakes at Percy Warner. He's going to have to prove that this race is a good fit for him. In the 2023 edition, he was pulled up and in 2022 he lost by 44 lengths. The post John Forbes Memorial Growing In Stature 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
From a young age, Jeramie Fennell was certain that he was born to be a jockey. Addicted to the thrill of riding, becoming a jockey was the only thing he really cared about, the only thing he knew for certain. So when, as he continued growing taller throughout his teenage years and maintaining weight became increasingly difficult, Fennell did what he thought he had to do in order to live out his dream. He turned to a different kind of addiction, but this time the consequences would lead him to a place so bleak that he never thought he would find a way out. Fennell is not ashamed of his dark past. Instead, he hopes that his story can be an inspiration to others because, against all odds, he managed to come out on the other side. Fennell grew up in Fort Pierre, South Dakota and spent his childhood following his father around the backside. Fennell's father was an exercise rider for top Quarter Horses like Special Effort, the first horse to win the Triple Crown for 2-year-old Quarter Horses. “I was the kid that didn't want to read books, but my parents bought me horse racing magazines and I'd read those all day,” recalled Fennell. “In the mornings I'd go help feed and my dad would take me to school and then I'd come back after school and help groom and walk horses. Once I got old enough to where I could start getting on horses, my dad let me start riding. When I turned 16, I started riding races and traveling with the horse racing industry.” Fennell found success in Quarter Horse racing early on in his career. In 2012 he rode Corona for You to a third-place finish in the G1 AQHA Distaff Challenge Championship. He traveled everywhere from Prairie Meadows in Iowa to Arapahoe in Colorado and Canterbury Park in Minnesota. But then his life took a turn for the worst. “I was always a bigger rider because my body frame is not built to be 118 pounds,” Fennell explained. “I started doing drugs, drinking alcohol and stuff, and it took a toll on me. I got in trouble in 2018 and didn't learn from it.” Jeramie Fennell at Turfway Park | Katie Petrunyak Fennell was at Remington Park, riding both Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses, when he realized he needed a change. Giving up his dream of being a jockey, he moved to Wyoming to gallop horses. But while he was there, he fell in with a group that only encouraged his substance abuse. Hoping to get away from that lifestyle, he moved to Montana and then to Idaho to work the starting gate. At those small fair meets, jockeys were in high demand. Fennell did what he had to do to lose weight and start riding again, his addiction worsening by the day. Eventually he could no longer find employment as a jockey or an exercise rider. He wandered the backside every morning looking for mounts, but people would tell him to get out of their barn, that he wasn't welcome there. Rejected and alone, Fennell wondered where he had gone so wrong. “At the time I was thinking I didn't look any different. I didn't act any different. But everyone was telling me, 'Man, you need to change your life. You're a heck of a hand on the back of a horse, but until you figure out what you've got to do, we can't help you,'” Fennell recalled. “That dawned on me for a couple of weeks and then one day I said, 'God, just show me something, a sign, to get help.' Sure enough, a couple of days later, I got pulled over and go to jail.” Fennell called his parents, but they wouldn't answer the phone. His family had already told him months ago that they would no longer help him. “After that day of sitting in that little cell, I knew I had to do something for myself,” said Fennell. “I made my mind up that with the road I'm on, I'm going to be in prison or getting buried.” Fennell had heard about a program called Stable Recovery, where men in the early stages of recovery from addiction were placed in a supportive, therapeutic community that was centered around horses. After he was released from jail, he went to his court date and then drove 26 hours to Lexington, Kentucky. Upon his arrival, Fennell met Stable Recovery's CEO Christian Countzler, who asked him if he was serious about wanting to change his life. “I said that I was open minded and willing to do anything, go to any length, to change my life because I just wanted to be on the backside of a racetrack on a horse,” Fennell recounted. Fennell started Stable Recovery on December 24, 2023. This spring, as he was nearing the end of the 90-day program, Countzler introduced Fennell to trainer Will Walden. Walden, who went through his own battle with drug addiction, had launched his stable just two years prior and his team was made up of graduates of the Stable Recovery program. As soon as Fennell graduated from Stable Recovery, he began traveling with Walden's stable. “When I started, Will told me, 'If you come to the barn, all I ask is that you attend AA meetings,'” Fennell said. “So to this day I still attend at least three AA meetings, work my steps, call my sponsor and if I have any trouble, I go to Will about it. Will has been there and done it. I have a lot of respect for that guy and this team.” Working with Thoroughbreds was a totally different game than the Quarter Horse circuit Fennell was so accustomed to. Walden taught Fennell a new way of exercise riding and showed him the ins and outs of the Thoroughbred industry. “When I first got in the barn I felt very out of place,” Fennell admitted. “But I felt like it was home at the same time because I knew there was people in the barn like Will who really cared about me because he had seen something in me that I didn't see in myself. I've been on horses that ran in the All American Derby, the big Quarter Horse race, but I never pictured myself getting on the type of high-quality horse that could go to the Breeders' Cup or the Kentucky Derby.” This fall, Fennell is living a dream that even less that a year ago, he never could have envisioned for himself. He is the regular rider of Minaret Station (Instilled Regard), the winner of the GII Bourbon Stakes who is now pointing for the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf at Del Mar on Nov. 1. Jeramie Fennell and Minaret Station on their way to morning training at Turfway | Katie Petrunyak A homebred for Larry Best's OXO Equine out of the multiple graded stakes winner Beau Recall (Ire) (Sir Prancealot {Ire}), Minaret Station arrived at Walden's barn at Turfway Park early this summer. Right away, Fennell took a liking to the boisterous 2-year-old. “He has always been a character,” Farrell explained. “Every day I'll walk by his stall and he'll try and bite me or grab my saddle or something. We have a really strong connection with each other. He's an unbelievable type of horse to gallop. He goes out there and does his thing because he just loves to train.” In his first two starts at Ellis Park and then Horseshoe Indianapolis, Minaret Station ran third on debut and then broke his maiden by a neck on Sept. 6. Fennell was there to watch both of those races, but tuned in from Turfway for the colt's stakes debut at Keeneland because he had to help with afternoon chores back at the barn. A 38-1 longshot, Minaret Station settled at the back of the pack in the mile-and-a-sixteenth Bourbon Stakes. He saved ground along the rail, then came flying in the final strides before the wire to get the win. All systems are now a go for Minaret Station to take a trip to Del Mar in a few weeks for the Juvenile Turf. The colt is only the second graded stakes winner for Will Walden and he will be the young conditioner's first Breeders' Cup starter. Fennell, who has been working with the colt at Turfway Park every morning since that breakout graded stakes victory, knows just how much talent Minaret Station has left to show. “He's still growing,” he shared. “If you compare him to humans, he's a little kid and he's still learning, but he tries his best. He's progressing and hopefully in the Breeders' Cup, he can run like a champ. Getting on a horse that is going into a big race like that in the Breeders' Cup, it's so exciting. There are times that I'll think about it and I almost want to cry tears of joy because it is very exciting for this team to get to send a horse to a race like that.” When Minaret Station and the Will Walden racing team get to Del Mar in a few weeks, Fennell knows there will be plenty of eyes on him during training each morning. But the ones he really cares about are those of his family, who will be tuning in to support him. After graduating from Stable Recovery, Fennell was able to reestablish a relationship with his parents and sister. He is also getting to know his young son, who he had not been to interact with when he was in the midst of his battle with addiction. “The last few years of my life, I didn't get to talk to my son because I was out in the chaos of my life and my son's mother said she didn't want my son seeing me that way,” said Fennell. “Now I get to go see him and it's amazing. He knows who his dad is and he knows his dad is sober. I can help him. I can help myself and others suffering from addiction. I can be a son, I can be a father and I can be a brother.” Fennell also has big goals for his future in the racing industry. He plans to continue exercise riding and eventually become an assistant trainer so that somewhere on down the line, he might be able to launch his own training career. “I look back to my past and think, 'Man what was I doing?'” said Fennell. “That's what I really thank Will Walden for, helping me be the best I can be in this industry. Over these past couple of months, I've been really tuning in to what he's been explaining to me about how in this industry, the sky is the limit. If you work hard, things will pay off.” The post Breeders’ Cup Connections: Jeramie Fennell Finds Redemption on Horseback 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
April Vintage, a stakes-placed mare who is pregnant to Justify on Southern Hemisphere time, will be on offer by WinStar Farm in the Inglis Digital USA October Sale, taking place Tuesday, Oct. 29, the online auction company said in a press release on Friday. The 3-year-old daughter of Vino Rosso was a stakes-placed juvenile in 2023, winning a Del Mar maiden special weight, and following up with a third-place effort in the Speakeasy Stakes, both going five furlongs on the turf. After her racing career came to a close, April Vintage was bred to the Triple Crown winner this summer on Southern Hemisphere time. “She was a talented, stakes placed, 2-year-old, and she has the physical makeup to suit the Australian market,” said Elliott Walden of WinStar Farm. Justify was Australia's leading freshman sire of 2022-2023 and continues to be a commercially-strong force Down Under, with a yearling average of more than AUS$350,000 at Australasian yearling sales and turning in prices as high as AUS$1.4 million. “We've been very fortunate to have been involved with a horse like Justify,” Walden said. “He's one of the world's elite stallions, and is excelling in every jurisdiction. This is a unique opportunity for those in the Southern Hemisphere to own one of the very few mares available in foal to this stallion.” Bred in Florida by Loren Nichols, April Vintage is out of the Uncle Mo mare Beautissimo, and she is a half-sister to the SP colt Arman (Bolt d'Oro). Her extended family included champion 2-year-old filly Halfbridled (Unbridled). “We're all very excited about this opportunity,” said Kyle Wilson, Inglis Digital USA senior director of sales and recruitment. “The chance to offer April Vintage in foal to a world class stallion like Justify from a world-class operation like WinStar is a privilege.” Entries close for the Inglis Digital USA October Sale on Monday, Oct. 21. The catalog will be released Friday Oct. 25. Click here for more information about the sale and to register to bid. The post Inglis Digital USA Lists April Vintage, In Foal To Justify, On Behalf Of WinStar 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
Whether or not you liked the 'Bill and Ben' analogies of the Racing For Change days, or the removal of the Champion Stakes from Newmarket to Ascot, you cannot fail to like the man who played a part in some of these attempts to modernise and market racing: Rod Street. This QIPCO British Champions Day – the 14th since the significant shake-up to the autumnal racing programme in 2011 – will be Street's last as CEO of British Champions Series. He stepped down from his role as CEO of Great British Racing (GBR) at the end of April. “Obviously with traditionalists and diehards, it wasn't the most popular decision,” he says of the creation of British Champions Day as the culmination of 35 Group 1 races throughout the season being brought together under the single Champions Series banner. “But since it launched in 2011, the day has grown and by many has become accepted as a really important day's racing. It's certainly the last day of high-quality older horse Flat racing in the UK season. It comes after the Arc, so it's really the the European finale, and it has become embedded now.” From Frankel to Frankie, Street has been there for every momentous renewal. “We were very fortunate in the first two years that Frankel came along when he did,” he acknowledges. “And that couldn't have launched the day more successfully. And since then we've had all sorts of milestones, fast-forwarding to Frankie Dettori's exit, which couldn't have been better, especially that he did it in the Champion Stakes on King of Steel. “It's a £4 million race day, full of high-class group races and I think we've created a really nice platform in the autumn for such stories to be told.” QIPCO was the key sponsor from the start and, though it remains the brand behind Champions Day, it will no longer sponsor the Champions Series from 2025. A new partner will be sought, along with a new person at the helm of the project. To crib from Joni Mitchell, sometimes we don't know what we've got 'til it's gone and British racing will be without one of its most steadfast supporters when the dust settles after this weekend. Street has that rare ability to be not only relentlessly positive but also unfailingly nice. Being nice is an underrated quality, in life generally and perhaps especially in racing. If you can keep your head while all about you others are squabbling then you may just be able to see it out, and that it is what Street has done, splitting his time almost equally over the last 30 years between racecourse management and promoting the sport itself. But everyone has that 'time's up' moment, and he has decided that it is time to pursue his own mentoring business. Time perhaps to let someone else deal with those on the inside whose failure to put aside vested interests can place the sport into something of a tailspin. “I started with Uttoxeter Racecourse in 1994 as an assistant commercial manager,” Street says, casting his mind back to the days working for Sir Stanley Clarke, the owner of the 'bomb scare' Grand National winner Lord Gyllene who would become the head of the Northern Racing group. “I'd come from a background in travel and entertainment and my immediate job before starting there was performing stand-up comedy. I was promoting music and comedy in the Midlands and, through the challenge of rarely being able to secure a warm-up act for gigs, I started doing the warm-up myself. It saved money. But I'd quite recently been married and I was never going to hit the heights as a comedian.” The Comedy Club's loss then was racing's gain as Street turned his love of entertainment into working out what would keep the racegoers entertained, and ideally becoming repeat customers. “Because I've come from an environment of promoting comedy or music or working in travel and tourism, the consumers have always been at the very forefront of my thinking,” he says. “The question you're always asking yourself, whether you're promoting a a race day or something in racing, is 'Why would someone be interested in this?' “Racing's got something for everyone and I think as a sport we're terribly down on ourselves. We love to talk about the latest crisis and we undoubtedly have challenges in generating new followers for the sport. There's so much competition and we know it's been a challenge since Covid with admissions, for example. But we're still, despite that, an incredibly popular choice for a a day out.” During Street's tenure, GBR has been behind the National Racehorse Week initiative, which was the brainchild of trainer Richard Phillips and this year saw more than 80 racing yards and stud farms open their doors to the public across the nation. “The horse is at the centre of racing, and we should never drift away from that. We can put on any number of music events or themes to race days, but if the horse isn't central, we're losing our purpose,” Street says. “National Racehorse Week has been a really big success. It has to be a good thing for people to make their own minds up about the sport, especially with the challenge we've got now with perceptions around equine welfare. “The world is changing. All sports other than football are facing this challenge. Cricket and rugby, particularly, are also facing real challenges about relevance and new customers, so we're not alone. And racing isn't due anything that it hasn't worked or strived for, so we mustn't think that things should come to us any easier than they come to anyone else. We've got to fight for customers. But we have great assets, and I think that other sports would look at some of the assets we've got and be full of envy. We have more than our fair share of iconic moments – Grand Nationals or Cheltenham Festivals or Derbys or Royal Ascot. And we've got that heritage which other sports just don't have, that connection to royalty, which is really powerful.” He's on a roll now, and it is hard not to wonder who will pick up this baton of enthusiasm in his wake. “The other thing is that you can play at any level in racing if you want to. You can be an expert, you can come and be a paddock watcher, but you can engage on a very basic level too, and turn up and with your friends and have a flutter and enjoy the action. And it's fast and dramatic and colourful. I think we're much more accessible than we think we are.” One also wonders if that early experience in stand-up comedy, with its rowdy hecklers, gave Street a good preparation for delivering marketing strategies and new ideas to an often inward-looking in-crowd. “It did, really,” he admits. “When Racing For Change then GBR came around I think there were quite a few constituents that hadn't really acknowledged that I'd already been working in the sport for 14 years prior to that point. So I think some would say, 'Oh, look, there's that marketing man.' “When 'marketing man' is used in racing it's invariably pejorative. But I think, over time, anyone who got to know me understood that I've been a lifelong fan and that I actually had a lot of racing experience. It was bumpy early doors when we were trying to do new things and talk about promoting the sport, and it was particularly bumpy around the Champions Series because it was such an emotive topic. That actually went away quite quickly but, yes, it certainly helped to have a thick skin, and when you've had things said to you on stage as a comedian, or even things thrown at you, it prepares you in going into certain racing boards and committees. “And I think one of the things that helped me do my job is recognising that at the heart of it, there's passion. There's passion for the sport, there's passion for the horse, there's passion for the jockeys and passion for the participants, and National Racehorse Week is a really good example of everyone uniting around that passion.” It is clear that there will be no looking back in anger from Street. It's not his style to carp at others from the sidelines and, after all, as he says, he's been a lifelong fan of the sport. “To have been close over the years to so many superstars, often in the paddock, because you work so closely in the sport and you're always there doing your job, you can forget what it's like to be a fan,” he says. “That's something I'm looking forward to next year – going racing for racing's sake.” He adds, “I don't want to be that person that has something to say about the racing industry. Having served in it for 30 years, I know it's really tough to be in the thick of it, whether you're trying to promote the sport or whether you're trying to administer the sport or you're trying to do veterinary work or you're trying to work out the fixture list. Dealing with a multitude of stakeholders is challenging. It really is like herding cats. “I'm still very aware of how hard it is to be trying to do that and trying to make progress, with any number of people making helpful comments about how you do your job. So I don't want to add to the challenge of whichever executives are running racing in the future by having an opinion on how well they're doing their job or not.” He adds, “I do always want to be a cheerleader for the sport, and I think I'm much better suited to that than being a racing Cassandra.” The post No More Mr Nice Guy: Rod Street Waves Farewell 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
A total of 40 networks, covering over 170 territories, will broadcast QIPCO British Champions Day. Racecourse Media Group (RMG) and HBA Media (HBA), working with QIPCO British Champions Series, have secured global coverage of the £4.1m raceday, which includes four Group 1 races. Fox Sports US will showcase the full card for the first time on Fox Sports 1, while ESPN / Disney + and SuperSport will broadcast to their significant South American and African audiences. The Green Channel (Japan) and HKJC, Cable TV, TVB and Now TV (Hong Kong) will serve Asian viewers, while the Middle East will be served by Dubai Racing Channel. First-time broadcasters include Racing.com (Australia), Sportsnet (Canada), Transvision (Indonesia), NTV (Mongolia) and Eurovision (Europe). The broadcast will be shown in the UK and Ireland by ITV, Virgin Media, Racing TV and Sky Sports Racing. Rod Street, CEO of British Champions Series, said, “All six races are set to be of the highest quality, and we are delighted that TV audiences from all corners of the globe will share in the excitement. Thank you to the teams at RMG and HBA for helping facilitate this record coverage.” The post QIPCO British Champions Day To Be Aired On 40 Networks Worldwide 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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