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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Umberto Rispoli, who captured his first riding title at the recently concluded Del Mar meet, will make a return visit to Hong Kong for Wednesday's Longines International Jockeys' Championship at Happy Valley. The Italian ex-pat spent six years riding in Hong Kong before relocating to Southern California in 2019. For Rispoli, who flew into Hong Kong last Tuesday–just two days after claiming the Del Mar title–the trip is part sentiment, part family vacation, and part professional competition. “I rode here for six years, so obviously Hong Kong is a place that I carry in my heart,” Rispoli said. “It's a beautiful city. When I was a young jockey, when I moved from France to Hong Kong, it's a place that taught me a lot in terms of building a strong character, mentally as well. They race only twice a week, so there aren't many opportunities. It builds your personality, you know. It's a special place.” In advance of the championship, Rispoli returned to Happy Valley last week and was gratified by the response he received. “I was there [last Wednesday] actually as a tourist,” he said. “Just to put myself in the mood again and breathe a little bit of the atmosphere of the races at night at a very charismatic track. It was very fun, very good. I had a warm welcome from everybody, from the riders and trainers and some people working behind the scenes, too. That proves to me that I left something important here. People were happy to see me and I was happy to see them. The most important thing that is wherever you go, you left a mark on people and they appreciate your presence at the track. I was very happy in the way they received me.” Rispoli made the return trip to Hong Kong with his wife, Kimberley Mosse Rispole, and their two young sons, Hayden, eight, and Aramis, three. “The reason we left right after Del Mar–I am here with the family,” Rispoli said. “My son when we left Hong Kong, he was only 2 1/2, so I wanted to show him where he grew up for his first years. And the other child wasn't even born yet. We planned on doing a lot of things, seeing a lot of friends, having nice dinners and some attractions for kids. Hong Kong gives you this opportunity, the chance to enjoy the city and have fun. It's a place you have to visit, because it gives you so much to do. It's a lot of entertainment. For family trips and couple trips, it would be one of the best trips people would take for sure.” Rispoli said his time riding races in Hong Kong presented him with challenges that he has used to develop his skills in the saddle. “It's tight, competitive races,” Rispoli said of racing in Hong Kong. “Almost every day is a handicap, so it's more strategy, more tactical. That's what you don't find anywhere else probably in the world. The handicap system works so very well here. That's what makes Hong Kong racing different.” Rispoli aboard Preakness winner Journalism | Horsephotos In Wednesday's jockey championship, Rispoli will face off against a group of international stars, including last year's championship winner Mickael Barzalona, as well as James McDonald, Ryan Moore, Hollie Doyle, William Buick, Joao Moreira, Christophe Lemaire, Rachel King, Zac Purton, Vincent Ho Chak-yiu, and Hugh Bowman. The 12 riders will compete against each other while earning points in four races worth HK$7.5 million (US$963,743) in prize money, along with total bonus awards of HK$1 million for the top three riders. “It's all about what horses you are going to ride and what draw you get,” Rispoli said of his championship mindset. “That's the important key in those kind of races. I will just try to be myself and no overthinking, just more focused on my horses.” Rispoli will be representing the United States when he makes his championship debut Wednesday. “It's an honor and a privilege,” he said of representing the Stars and Stripes in Hong Kong. “It's a country that, since I have been there at the end of 2019, has given me a lot. So many opportunities. A lot of people, trainers and owners, gave me opportunities without most of them knowing me, who I was and what I had done in the past. So I will definitely try to represent the United States in the best way possible and try to bring the cup home. The Italian enters the jockey championship on the back of a career year in the saddle. In addition to his Del Mar riding title, he also rode Journalism (Curlin) to victory in the GI Preakness Stakes and runner-up efforts in the GI Kentucky Derby and GI Belmont Stakes. “It's been an amazing year so far,” Rispoli said. “Obviously, having this opportunity to ride at this challenge at Happy Valley, and if I have a chance to win it, it would be a cherry on the cake to just close the year in an amazing way. “Happy Valley is one of the most iconic racetracks in the world. So I am glad to be back and I am glad this opportunity came up.” The post Fresh Off Del Mar Riding Title, Rispole Returns to Hong Kong for Jockey Championship 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
“Phil,” he told his son. “No Tackett ever gave $95,000 for a horse. We're in pretty precarious territory here.” Partly, of course, that was simply a matter of inflation. By the 2014 Keeneland January Sale, Paul Tackett had already been selling horses for half a century. From his first Keeneland consignment, in 1961, he sold six yearlings for $6,100 and imagined himself rich. Even so, the bid felt uncomfortably steep-albeit Morrow Cove (Yes It's True), carrying a first foal by Big Brown, was a big young mare with two stakes wins to her name. “My mother used to make dresses for my sisters out of feed sacks,” Tackett remembers now. “We were poor, but my parents had decided that didn't mean we had to stay that way. They had a lot of work ethic, and a lot of pride. Every night, those dresses would be starched and ironed, she'd put my sisters' hair in rollers and make them shine their shoes. And when they got on that bus, they looked like they'd stepped out of a bandbox.” But subsequent events have only made Tackett grateful that they went to their limit for this mare-first and foremost, the tragedy that claimed Phil in 2020, at just 52. “Congestive heart failure,” Tackett explains. “And he never said anything, was still working seven days before passing away. Even as a boy, he'd pick out what he thought the smartest horses in a sale. And often he would be uncannily right. He put a filly through the ring when he was 11 years old. I had a man walk beside him, so he wouldn't get in any trouble, but Phil had rubbed the filly at home and brought her up to the ring.” Phil's knack had not deserted him here, either. The mare's Big Brown colt would retrieve $70,000 of their outlay, and subsequent foals did better yet: notably a Pioneerof the Nile foal-share at $370,000. And then, at the 2023 September Sale, Tackett brought her Omaha Beach colt down from his little farm near Georgetown. “Nice colt, kind of big and gangly,” he recalls. “We had him in Book 4 and Donato Lanni bought him for $260,000.” Nevada Beach did not start as a juvenile and only surfaced in April. By September he was winning the GI Goodwood Stakes. Tackett remembers watching the horse hook up and go, shouting to his wife, “Look here, look at this country horse!” And while Nevada Beach never got involved in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, he regrouped a few days ago to win the GIII Native Diver Stakes. In the process he further elevated his American Pharoah half-sister, rejected by the tire-kickers when offered at Fasig-Tipton last October. Fortunately Coolmore allowed Tackett to buy out the foal-share, and someday she will return to her native farm to take the place of her mother. “I lost the mare, she colicked,” Tackett explains. “And they had to do a Caesarean to get the filly. But now I've an American Pharoah half-sister to a Grade I winner that couldn't bring $30,000 at auction. The only filly the mare ever had.” Nor is she the only legacy of his late son's ability to push Tackett into a gamble. Phil had always been a fan of Arrogate, and in 2020 proposed sending him their stakes-placed homebred mare Saharan (Desert Party). Having initially protested that Arrogate was beyond their means, Tackett eventually managed to arrange a foal-share. But Phil never lived to see the resulting filly, who realized $350,000 as a yearling. Then her purchaser John Rogitz wrote to Tackett out of the blue. He had read about Phil, and asked whether he could honor his memory by naming the filly Philippa. “Now that is a good human being,” says Tackett, still palpably moved by the gesture. “She broke her maiden on the turf this fall, and now he's said that he'll be sending Philippa back to the farm. That's the reason I get up in the morning, the reason I stay in this business: when you can meet individuals like that.” He has seen many come and go in this business, and knows that those who stay humble are worth more than any balance sheet. Depression Era values were still prized when he was born, in 1937; certainly his father never forgot where he had come from. “He had a sixth-grade education,” Tackett says. “But once he got on his feet, he helped so many people. Small farmers working for him would say, 'We've a chance to buy a little place of our own.' And, though he'd be losing them, he'd say, 'Let me go to the bank with you and I'll sign for you until you get on your feet.' At his funeral, I had 15 or 20 people come up and say, 'If it hadn't been for your father, I'd never have owned my farm.'” In his own youth Tackett was expected to show all the same drive, but he had also been shown the poetry of life-and of the Thoroughbred, in particular. “I must have been about eight when my dad first brought me to Keeneland,” he recalls. “I couldn't see over the rail, but could climb up with my toe in the V-mesh fence and look over. And I thought, 'These are the most gorgeous animals I ever saw.'” At home in Stamping Ground they raised tobacco and cattle, some sheep and hogs, but there were also draft horses and a pony the boy could ride. When no more than 12 or 13, Tackett bought a Tennessee walking mare and started a little showing. “But I guess the judges must have kind of aggravated me,” he says wryly. “Because one day I decided to buy a Thoroughbred: if he could put his nose down on the wire, we wouldn't need anyone to tell us who's best.” Tackett did start at the University of Kentucky but once marrying Jean Ann, he was expected to go to work. “My sister said, 'The cutest girl walks by my house to school every day,'” Tackett recalls. “I said I didn't have time for any of that. But then I went to a football game and she was a majorette. And when I saw her twirling that baton, I told my sister, 'I don't think I'm as busy as I thought I was.'” They will have been married 69 years next month. Back then Tackett was working at a Lexington stockyard part-owned by his father. Mondays they staged a horse sale: drafts and ponies, mostly, but one day a fellow came through with a Thoroughbred mare. He would take $1,000 for her and her weanling. “So I bought her,” Tackett recalls. “My dad wasn't very happy but that fall a man gave me $950 just for the weanling. I thought, 'This is pretty good.' So then I brought those six yearlings to Keeneland. I was so green. If I'd worked a year at Spendthrift or Calumet, I could have seen things it took me 10 years to see for myself. So the whole business was self-taught. But that's why I don't know much!” He gives a self-deprecating chuckle. But somehow he made it all work. Like many of the best stockmen, he had honed an eye for conformation working with steers, and always checked over the stakes horses in the paddock. One day he read Bull Hancock saying that Nasrullah and Princequillo crossed well. Well, Tackett had his $3,000 mare by Mt. Hope, who was by Nasrullah's son Nantallah; so he bred her to Princequillo's grandson Verbatim. The poor man's version, he called it. “I sold the yearling for $16,500,” he recalls. “His name was Hopeful Word, and he won over $1 million: won the Clark, the Stephen Foster. And the only reason I bought the mare was that I had a friend racing at Charlestown, who'd bought a $1,600 yearling out of her. He'd already won something like eight races with that horse, ended up running him till he was 11.” It's hard, he acknowledges, to outrun pedigree. His best angle has been to buy well-bred mares with unfashionable covers. It's a long game, and you can give her a better shot only a year later. Not that he is terribly comfortable with the “halter show” sales environment, altered beyond recognition since 1961. “Back then, see, it was a sport,” he laments. “People kept most of the horses they raised. So horses weren't prepped very much, whether you were a small or big farm. Now here come the agents, the vets, the scoping, the video, the X-ray. When they don't X-ray, mostly they're just immature. So I'll take those home, castrate them, turn them out. Might wait till they're two to break them, run them at three. They all win.” Obviously he needs to put bread on the table, and accepts that some kind of sales prep is necessary through summer. “But you have to know how to take care of land,” Tackett says. “Horses are a crop like any other. So you've always got to be putting down some lime or sowing some clover. And land will get a little stale on you. Tesio had 1,800 acres, and used 600 at a time, so every parcel got two years' rest.” These days Tackett himself is down to 85 acres and 10 mares. “This was my 64th straight year to sell a yearling at Keeneland,” he reflects. “I love selling horses, but what I love most is raising a runner. When I breed, I'm really not thinking about what it'll bring at the sale. Even though I want to sell, and sell good, I don't want to handicap him one bit to sell him. I want him to be a racehorse.” To that end, young stock is reared outdoors. “You take a boy that stays home playing piano with his mother, and a kid from the ghetto, who's going to win if you put them in the boxing ring?” Tackett asks. “We'll bring them in two or three times a week: trim them regularly, worm them, handle them some. But they're out 24 hours and we feed them in tubs out in the fields. Fillies and colts run together till January 15. They have to compete out there.” Tackett teases his wife that no more should be carved on his tombstone than: “An old horse farmer from down on Stamping Ground Road.” But you don't have to spend much time in the company of this delightful gentleman before deciding that few of us could aspire any higher. “The way I've lived my life satisfied me fine,” he says. “I've made my own decisions, some good, some bad. I didn't have to work for somebody else, and I got to be outside with these horses. And if I never raised a champion horse, I did raise a champion family. I've outlived many friends but been lucky in the ones I've had, and still have. Us little guys all fight the uphill battle. “We've done it a long time. But to breed a nice horse is still a big thrill. I've always felt like I was the underdog, and that everybody else was probably smarter than me. So I always felt like I had to get up earlier than they did, and work harder, if I was going to compete at all. And I still feel that way. I'm very humble about what little we've accomplished. I've had such good employees over the years, and vets and farriers.” Beyond that, it just comes down to treating people right. “If you don't, it'll come back to you,” he says with a shrug. “I probably never did sell a horse to a man that I couldn't sell him the second one. Because I never tried to cheat, I just tried to present a good, sound, honest horse. Really my reputation, and my father's reputation, we worked all our lives to make it good-and keep it good. And that's worth more than all the money you'll ever get.” The post Paul Tackett: Selling at Keeneland 64 Years Straight 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
Approaching Christmas four years ago, a still slightly gawky chestnut two-year-old jumped from the stalls for his debut in the 1m3f British Stallion Studs EBF Novice Stakes and had to be rousted along by his jockey just to remain in touch with the rest of the field. In last place around the first bend and along the back stretch, he looked as though his 100/1 starting price was justified. But then he woke up. And on the home turn and down the straight he started to scythe through his opponents until the lead was his, the two joint-favourites trailing in his wake at the line. Hopefully the name Giavellotto went into a few notebooks that day, but most of us were probably a little preoccupied by Christmas shopping. We know his name now of course, and on Friday the son of Mastercraftsman hopped back on a plane in preparation to defend his crown in the G1 Hong Kong Vase this coming Sunday. That victory a year ago over his Newmarket neighbour Dubai Honour was Giavellotto's first at the highest level, but he has an impressive record now, which includes back-to-back wins in the G2 Yorkshire Cup, as well as a G2 Princess of Wales's Stakes victory at his home track and third-place finishes in the St Leger, Irish St Leger and Coronation Cup. His latest eye-catching run was to finish fourth in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, though this important race had not initially been on his trainer Marco Botti's plans for the horse in 2025. “It's always been the case that it's best not to overface him,” says Botti of his stable star. “He likes a little bit of time between races. Unfortunately, we were forced to miss the Princess of Wales's at the July meeting. His scope wasn't great, and luckily the owners understood, because we had won it last year and it was a race we wanted to run in. But we weren't 100 per cent happy with him, so we were forced to give him a little bit more time and then bring him back for the September Stakes. And it was only after that race, when he beat Kalpana, that we thought we would have to seriously consider the Arc. She was the [Arc] favourite, so it would have been silly not to.” He continues, “When the decision was made, the forecast looked really good. Two weeks before the Arc, it looked like it was going in the direction of a dry spell. Then, obviously, everything changed and when that storm came across it didn't do us any favours, but in that bad ground he was still terrific, wasn't he? You could see in the first part of the race he took a while to just find his feet. And actually, I was worried after a couple of furlongs that he wasn't really travelling, and I thought he was just struggling a bit, but Andrea [Atzeni, jockey] just patiently left him to find his rhythm and then in the straight he picked up.” Freshened up after that run in early October, Giavellotto is pleasing his trainer still. He had his last piece of serious work on the Al Bahathri on Thursday morning under Marco Ghiani before boarding the horsebox to catch his flight to Hong Kong on Friday. This he does with relish, apparently. “He loves to travel,” says Botti. It's just as well because so far he has taken his owner-breeder Francesca Franchini of Scuderia La Tesa to many of the major tracks around Britain, as well as Dubai, Saudi Arabia, France, and of course Hong Kong. Franchini is plainly smitten with the statuesque stallion she bred from the Galileo mare Gerika. To the headcollar Giavellotto wears at Botti's Prestige Place she has attached a tag which proclaims 'I'm the King'. Since April 2024, she has owned him in partnership with Vaibhav Shah. Botti says that no stallion stud has yet been forthcoming with an offer to stand the horse, who almost ended up racing in Australia in his earlier days. “It's been a good journey because most of these horses, as we all know, get sold, so unfortunately most of the trainers, we lose these horses and you don't have a chance to go for the good meetings. He was almost sold as a three-year-old then it fell through, otherwise he would have gone to Australia and that would have been it,” he says. “Luckily for us – and now I can say we were lucky it didn't happen – we get to have him as a six-year-old. He ran well in the St Leger as a three-year-old, he did well as a four-year-old, five, and now six. “As a two-year-old, he was a bit of a handful, and he can be on some days. He likes his routine but generally overall he's fine. My head man Andrew [Morris] gets on so well with him. He's one of the horses that if you change the rider he can get upset. But Andrew, knows him inside out and they get on well, so him being a colt hasn't been a problem at all.” 'I'm The King' reads the tag on Giavellotto's headcollar | Emma Berry Of the prospect of Giavellotto racing on as a seven-year-old, he adds, “Ajay Anne is the racing manager for Mr Shah and we all are thinking the same in that, let's see how it goes in Hong Kong. But the general feeling is that unless something happens in terms of a stud wanting to stand him, he will probably race on next year.” Botti is also overseeing Giavellotto's youngest and final half-brother Gioco Di Squadra, by St Mark's Basilica, who is also chestnut and is out on Warren Hill in the lot after his more celebrated sibling. “Marco Ghiani has ridden most of his gallops and he said Giavellotto felt as good [on Thursday] as he was last year before he went to Hong Kong,” says Botti. “He looks enthusiastic and happy, he's got a good skin. Touch wood, I don't think we could be happier with what we've seen so far. He looks great.” The trainer does admit to having been surprised to a degree by his win at Sha Tin last year. “We kept campaigning him over a mile and six [furlongs] thinking, yes, he was showing more speed, but at the same time, before going to Hong Kong, I felt maybe the mile and a half there was a bit of a sharper than we have in Europe. The straight is just over two furlongs. But then he surprised me, with the turn of foot he showed that day. I mean, obviously he's a solid horse, he's a good horse. He always gives his best on the track, but to get checked and just reorganise himself, he found an extra gear to then pick up and win the race going away. I thought it was quite impressive,” he says. Giavellotto's half-brother Gioco Di Squadra | Emma Berry “Maybe it looks a slightly better field this year than last year, and you always hope you won't draw on the outside and those kind of things. Andrea is going to take the ride. I thought he rode a very good race in the Arc. “It's huge prize-money and when you've got a horse that can travel there and run so well, it makes sense. His owner-breeder Francesca Franchini had the greatest experience winning the race. She couldn't believe it, the set-up on race day and the experience of Hong Kong. So after the race, it was like, well, we've got to come back next year. It has been the priority this season.” Botti, whose training career has been defined by international success through the likes of North American Grade I winners Capla Temptress, Euro Charline, Gitano Hernando and Joshua Tree, as well as globetrotters Jakkalberry, Planteur and Tac De Boistron, is only too aware of his good fortune in still being able to muse over plans for Giavellotto as he approaches his seventh birthday. “Like I said, mostly we have had to sell our better horses as two- or three-year-olds, like Folgaria and Tatsumaki,” he says. “So to actually be able to still have him in the yard – I think it's been a great story, for the yard and the staff, we all need that kind of horse, to be able to enjoy a few nice trips abroad. He's been all over the place and he owes no one anything, really.” The post ‘I Don’t Think We Could Be Happier’: Marco Botti on Giavellotto’s Return to Hong Kong 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
With his background in real estate, NYRA chairman and Jockey Club steward Marc Holliday is the ideal person to guide the organization's future and construction of Belmont Park. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
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