Wandering Eyes

Super Steed emerged in good order from his upset victory in the Southwest Stakes (G3) Feb. 18 at Oaklawn Park and will return to the track in the next few days to begin preparations for the Rebel Stakes (G2) March 16, trainer Larry Jones said. View the full article

15:45 Exeter Annie Mc was an impressive winner at Chepstow last time out, sitting patiently at the back of the field before breezing through to lead at the second last and open up a winning margin of eighteen lengths with relative ease. A 10lbs rise will make things more difficult but it was hard not to […] The post Picks From The Paddock Best Bet – Friday 22th February appeared first on RaceBets Blog EN. View the full article

The Lone Star Park Racing Club is currently taking memberships for the 2019 Thoroughbred Season which opens Thursday, April 18 and runs through Sunday, July 21. View the full article

Liam the Charmer carries American hopes in the $1 million His Highness The Emir's Trophy Stakes Feb. 23 at Al Rayyan Racecourse in Doha, Qatar, where he'll face an expected 14 opponents including two-time race winner The Blue Eye (GB). View the full article

Unlike other American horses prepping for a trip to Dubai this year, Stormy Liberal's final Southern California start ahead of the March 30 Al Quoz Sprint (G1) won't be any kind of audition. View the full article

This week is the stakes report on the March 7, 1987 Southwest Stakes win by Demons Begone that ran in the March 14, 1987 magazine. View the full article

The UK’s largest racecourse group Arena Racing Company (ARC) has been given a taste of how badly its reduction in prize-money has been received with two novice races at Lingfield’s Saturday meeting attracting a combined total of one declared runner. Both Class 5 events with an advertised total prize fund of £4,500 each, the 1m novice stakes, which had received 18 entries, became a walkover at the declaration stage–the Nick Littmoden-trained Greybychoice (Ire) being the sole intended runner–while the five-furlong contest will have no runners. Particularly embarrassing for ARC is the fact that these two races are on one of its highest-profile cards of the year featuring the G3 Betway Winter Derby. Britain’s winningmost trainer Mark Johnston told TDN on Thursday morning, “I had two runners entered for the same race. I looked at the prize-money and I regretted entering. I took one to Chelmsford instead, where the prize-money was more than 50% better, and the other one will be entered for a median auction maiden at Southwell worth £8,000. It’s getting to the point where it’s embarrassing to take horses to some of these races. I’ll be monitoring the prize-money levels closely before entering.” Just less than a year after the British Horseracing Authority was able to announce a significant increase in prize-money for grassroots level racing, ARC let it be known in December that it would slash £3 million from its prize-money budget for 2019 as a response to the British government’s decision to cut the maximum stake on FOBT machines in betting shops from £100 to £2. Bookmakers have estimated that around 4,000 betting shops may close as a result of this, which would lead to a significant shortfall in the media rights payments received by racecourses, currently calculated on a ‘per-shop’ basis. This decrease in ARC’s executive contribution to prize-money in lower-grade contests–affecting Class 4, 5 and 6 races on the Flat–means that the company is unable to ‘unlock’ extra funding made available to racecourses through the Race Incentive Fund (RIF) and the Appearance Money Scheme (AMS), which were introduced from the start of 2018 to extend prize-money payments to placed horses. In ARC’s case, this is believed to amount to around £4.5 million. In a statement released in December, ARC’s Chief Executive Officer Martin Cruddace said, “The British racing industry is today in a considerably different position than when we underwent the funding review of 2017 which came about as a direct result of the increase in Levy income to the sport, itself a result of the Levy being extended to cover online betting companies. “Today, however, the well-publicised impact of betting shop closures on racecourses’ media rights income has already started to take effect, and will only increase in the months and years to come. As a result of this, ARC simply cannot continue to support our current levels of executive contribution to prize-money and unlock all qualifying races, as was the case throughout 2018. We fully understand the importance of prize-money across the industry, and do not take such a decision lightly.” It is a decision which has been greeted with frustration by a range of owners and trainers. Phil McEntee, who deliberately targets the all-weather season for his small Newmarket-based string with notable success, said of the lack of support for Saturday’s races, “This is clearly a stand against ARC. Prize-money levels aren’t acceptable and it’s good to see that some of the bigger trainers who had runners entered have not declared for the races. This isn’t just about the smaller owners and trainers but it does hit the smaller yards harder. We’ve had five winners on the all-weather so far this season and the extra money that is available for placed horses and through the AMF really does make a difference to my owners and to my staff. It trickles in and helps the business model.” With 16 racecourses in its portfolio, including four of Britain’s six all-weather tracks, ARC stages more than 500 race meetings each year and in 2013 it launched the £1 million All Weather Championships Finals Day on Good Friday. The introduction of Europe’s richest non-turf race meeting was designed to encourage owners to keep more Flat horses in training through the winter, though recent cuts may end up having the opposite effect. Laurence Bellman, who has 15 horses in training in Britain, admits that he has considered retiring several of his string. He said, “I am in that category where I have a lot of all-weather runners. I love my horses and I’m not in this for the money but I don’t want to be running for less than we were last year, and I imagine 100% of owners feel the same. “I still have a great time having a winner at Southwell, or wherever it is, and I love to go racing to watch my horses, but as an owner I feel we can’t take a decrease in prize-money–none of the costs of having a horse in training have decreased.” View the full article

This week is the stakes report on the March 7, 1987 Southwest Stakes win by Demons Begone that ran in the March 14, 1987 magazine. View the full article

The Champion Hurdle is the first championship race of the week and on the face of it, the race looks weak. Obviously, Buveur D’Air is the horse to beat having taken the last two renewals of the race but he not invincible as Verdana Blue proved in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton. Nicky Henderson has […] The post Champion Hurdle 2019 Preview appeared first on RaceBets Blog EN. View the full article

Addressing your thoughts, questions and statements about Hong Kong racing. Have something to say? Send a tweet to @SCMPRacingPost.The club would like to clarify that it has not been involved in any discussions with the Kaohsiung City government regarding their plans to develop horse racing – Jockey Club statementThe Jockey Club rarely makes public statements in response to media reports, so it is notable there have been two in the past three weeks distancing itself from anything to do with… View the full article

18:10 Wolverhampton Boom The Groom may well be in the twilight of his career but even at the age of eight connections felt a wind operation would aid the geldings chances. A recent third at Chelmsford shows he’s still got a tonne of ability left and although this is a step up in class it […] The post Picks From The Paddock Best Bet – Thursday 21th February appeared first on RaceBets Blog EN. View the full article

Tony Millard’s rising sprint star Refined Treasure returns to the races at Sha Tin on Sunday and the South African says the four-year-old is “going very nicely” as he looks to regain the momentum that saw him win three on the trot last season.After being badly hampered on debut in January last year, Refined Treasure then strung together three impressive wins up the Sha Tin straight, prompting Millard to suggest the horse “could be anything”.But the gelding has had some issues since that purple… View the full article

Australian raider Comin’ Through will need to take a step up from his first effort in Dubai if he is going to combat the might of Godolphin in the Group Two Zabeel Mile at Meydan on Thursday.Having his first start since coming 12th to superstar Beauty Generation in December’s Group One Longines Hong Kong Mile, the Chris Waller-trained gelding just ran out of puff in the Group Two Al Fahidi Fort (1,400m), finishing seventh.That race was dominated by Godolphin trainer Charlie Appleby, who had the… View the full article

Jomo all set to make amends View the full article

Stiffer task for easy last-start winner Mr Hooper View the full article

Early scratching February 22 View the full article

Vorster’s Australian debut delayed as Blue Diamond ride called off View the full article

Apprentice jockey Romero Maragh was a most welcome visitor Feb. 20 at Gulfstream Park. View the full article

Vasilika's connections pulled the claimer turned grade 1 winner out of the Keeneland November Sale to continue racing, and she'll hit the Santa Anita Park turf again Feb. 23 in the $200,000 Buena Vista Stakes (G2T). View the full article

The Lone Star Park Racing Club is accepting members for the 2019 season which runs Apr. 18 through July 21. The minimal investment is $500 and 150 shares will be sold. Membership can be purchased online by clicking here. In addition to being part owner in a racehorse, membership perks include free admission for club members and a guest for the season, a parking pass, barn tours, e-mail updates and more. View the full article

Woodbine unveiled its stakes schedule for the 2019 Thoroughbred racing season that will be highlighted by the $1 million Queen's Plate and the $1 million Ricoh Woodbine Mile, which will kick off Woodbine's championship fall turf season. View the full article

The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission has approved $147,000 from the Kentucky Equine Drug Research Council fund for a study that aims to develop an affordable test to detect horses who have been given small levels—microdoses—of erythropoietin. View the full article

On the face of it, the way Mike Abraham came up with an Eclipse champion suggests only the futility of all the agonized judgement that typically consumes him–no less than any other breeder–in making plans and decisions. After all, he bought the dam of Accelerate (Lookin at Lucky) more or less on a whim, an opportunist $25,000 impulse for a mare he hadn’t even been to see in the back ring. And she was only sent to Lookin At Lucky, for the mating that produced a GI Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, because she was jilted in an engagement with his studmate Scat Daddy. It’s only when you learn other chapters in Abraham’s story, however, that you realize how apparently random blessings tend only to fall on those who are sufficiently receptive. Which means that they are earned, generically, no less than those that appear to result from the most specific and targeted of strategies. So both in buying the mare, and in choosing a best man when the groom proved to be unavailable, Abraham showed the same spacious imagination that governed his turf career from the outset. Just hear what happened when he spelled the very first horse he ever owned, a Cal-bred filly he had claimed with a partner, on a farm near Albuquerque. “Being my first horse I wanted to go up there and visit her about three times a week,” Abraham said. “But then I found out the guy who had the farm was in a little over his head. To make a long story short, I ended up buying a horse farm with one horse. And I then thought it my obligation to fill it up with other horses. So, I did. I learned the hard way that you don’t do that. But I had a bunch of horses. At one time I think I had like 300 mares up there. It was crazy. I was going broke every month just trying to pay my feed bill.” If that was the outcome of a chance encounter at a Quarter Horse fair meet-with an old sports coach, who infected him with the horseracing bug-then little wonder if Abraham proved so responsive to fate when Issues (Awesome Again) was led into the ring at the 2011 Keeneland November Sale. Here was a stakes-placed winner of four out of eight starts, from a terrific broodmare sire-line, in foal to the promising young sire Scat Daddy, and she was barely able to get a drizzle of interest as she stood up there on the dais. “I had paged through the mares the night before,” Abraham recalled. “I liked Awesome Again mares and she was relatively young. But I had probably 40 pages turned back as possibilities. I didn’t even go and look at her in the back, she wasn’t really on my mind at all, but luckily I was there when she came in. I could have gone to eat or something. As it was, when I saw what she was bringing, well, I was certainly willing to go some more. Maybe not a whole lot more, but I was tickled to death to get her for that, for sure. For whatever reason there are always a bunch of them, later in that sale, that start falling through the cracks. I was just in the right place at the right time.” Between that fateful day and his first, immoderate experiment in New Mexico, there had plainly been much trial and error as Abraham evolved the smarts required to make his new passion viable. As he got the numbers back to a manageable level on that first farm, he was fortunate to be introduced by his veterinarian to Carl Nafzger. They still have a strong rapport, and Nafzger trained winners for him at Keeneland and Arlington–albeit for a long time subsequently Abraham defected to Quarter Horses. In fact, his very first one was Sparkling Moolah, who created a big buzz in California as an undefeated 2-year-old in 1980. Again, though, it was breeding that intrigued him most. And by the time he renewed a Thoroughbred stable, a decade or so ago, he knew what he was about. The fact was that he had initially gone onto the turf with an urban upbringing and precious little in the way of an inherited disposition. True, his father did briefly race a couple of Quarter Horses in Oklahoma. More significantly, however, he passed on the kind of knack necessary to fund such an adventure, Abraham having followed him into oil, gas and above all real estate. “My dad did a lot of different things,” he said. “He was an entrepreneur of sorts. He made tons of money and lost tons of money. He was a real gambler, so maybe I got that from him. All the way through, I made my own mistakes and pretty much worked my way out of those mistakes, because I really didn’t listen to anybody. I figured: ‘I got myself in this mess so I’m going to get myself out.’ One time I traded about 150 mares for a building in El Paso. One building, and really wasn’t much of one, but that was a good way of getting a bunch of mares off the feed bill. I did a lot of reading, educating myself. And tried to go to as good a quality as I could afford. And in the end it worked out very well.” Because it’s not as though Abraham’s success with Issues was a flash in the pan. “Yeah, we’ve had several good stories buying mares,” he acknowledged. “I bought a Storm Cat mare called One Stormy Mama for $23,000 and have sold over $1 million in babies out of her. They weren’t all real sound, but they run. She had one called Thunder Moccasin (A.P. Warrior), who was an undefeated graded stakes winner. Another one was Funfair, a More Than Ready mare. She was a stakes winner, but we bought her for $19,000. I bred her to Malibu Moon, everybody told me I was crazy, but we sold the yearling for $250,000. And then I sold her for $350,000, because when he died it really made a premium on a mare in foal to Scat Daddy.” Certainly Abraham made the most of the windfall that was Issues. The foal she was carrying at the time of her purchase turned out to be Daddy D T (Scat Daddy), who himself repaid 10 times their joint cost when sold as a yearling for $250,000. (Importantly, he had been spotted by the Ingordo/Hronis team, who subsequently came back for Accelerate.) Daddy D T’s older full-brother Amarish, meanwhile, upgraded the page through a first graded stakes podium. “And it just went up from there,” Abraham said. “Daddy D T placed in the [GI] Breeders’ Cup [Juvenile Turf]. But when I booked her back to Scat Daddy, we got there and there was a problem that day. We’d known there might be, though, so I’d done some nicking homework. And I chose Lookin at Lucky. The nick looked good, the fit looked good, and I liked that horse a lot. She was late anyway, and I didn’t want to wait for Scat Daddy to end up with a June baby.” As it was, she delivered a chestnut colt May 10. Abraham lives in Las Vegas and only saw him on sporadic visits to Kentucky. “He never looked a real late foal,” Abraham recalled of Accelerate. “And he grew up well, matured well, always seemed a good-natured colt. But nothing you would remember as just outstanding. I don’t remember of any setbacks or anything. He just developed into a nice colt and I was very happy with the $380,000 we got for him.” Abraham sensibly gave himself the chance of cashing in, offering Issues at Fasig-Tipton’s Fall Sale in 2014 just after Daddy D T had run third at the Breeders’ Cup. But the bidding stalled at $450,000 and luckily he held onto her. “I was really thinking more than that, and I’d had second thoughts even about bringing her,” he remembered. “At the time I think it was probably going to take $750,000. I think Coolmore was the underbidder. But I wasn’t going to sell her for that–even though you could say $450,000 was a lot of money already for a mare I paid $25,000 for. But it worked out.” Issues is expecting a Curlin foal this spring, having missed out last year in what appears to have been fairly exasperating circumstances. Nor had it been especially plain sailing in the meantime, the two Bernardini sons she sent up to consecutive September Sales having both had one or two hold-ups. The second, in fact, didn’t meet his reserve, as a late foal with immaturity issues, and Abraham will give him time and race him in his own stable. Abraham still retains a foot in the Quarter Horse camp, with a farm in New Mexico, though he is now standing his first Thoroughbred stallion in [GI] Breeders’ Cup Sprint runner-up Laugh Track, a half-brother to Commissioner (A.P. Indy) by Distorted Humor, at Double LL Farms in the same state. As a freshman last year, he had half a dozen winners from 16 starters. “And I had a real nice bunch of mares bred to him the second year,” Abraham noted. “I own 25% of a Quarter Horse stallion called First Moonflash. He’d be in the top three or four in the world right now. But I do have probably 20, 25 Thoroughbred mares out there also, and about the same in Kentucky.” That crossover qualifies Abraham as an informed witness to the remarkable transferability to Thoroughbreds of Quarter Horse lore, as practiced by the likes of D. Wayne Lukas and Bob Baffert. “Basically, those guys are all real horsemen,” Abraham said. “I think that’s the key. They know what a good horse looks like and they know how to train one. And they’ve been in it a long time, mostly they started very young. I don’t know that they train them any differently. Baffert, for sure, is demanding in works. Those guys would pick out big Thoroughbreds that look like Quarter Horses. If you look at Justify (Scat Daddy), he’s like a giant Quarter Horse. Big hip, good bone.” Abraham’s other great passion is art. Again, there are no half measures. The man who bought a whole farm for a single claimed horse is also the man who has assembled the world’s largest LeRoy Nieman collection. “I haven’t been doing it that long, but I’ve bought a bunch,” he said. “I’ve sold a few just because I don’t even have a place to put them, but I’m working on a deal to maybe get them displayed in a big venue. As a kid I remember watching him drawing the Olympics, drawing horse races: he was always a sports artist and was at all the big events. “I was in Vegas one day walking by an art gallery and saw one of his paintings. Right away I said, ‘Wow.’ So I went in there and ended up buying it. And again, you learn by trial and error. I paid a fortune because you know, I went in and paid the store price. And so I started educating myself, ended up buying a lot privately or at auctions. But it’s a lot of fun, something to blow off steam and a little different from the horses. They don’t eat, and they don’t die, so it’s pretty good!” Abraham only met Nieman once, when he was sketching a big basketball game at the University of New Mexico. He introduced himself and said: “You know, I have 50 of your originals.” And Nieman looked at him and replied, “You have a good eye.” “That cracked me up,” recalled Abraham. “He was quite a guy. He lived a good life. Playboy hired him and he went all around the world and painted everybody. I’ve got Frank Sinatra, Mickey Mantle. Some I wouldn’t part with for anything.” And now Abraham has an equine masterpiece to his credit, too–one eligible to leave a lasting legacy in his new role at Lane’s End. Accelerate couldn’t quite round off his career as hoped in the GI Pegasus World Cup deluge, but Abraham will always have the memory of that Breeders’ Cup Classic. He wasn’t actually there, instead watching in his hotel room in Lexington prior to the November sales. “I didn’t want to go over there and jinx the horse,” he explained. “I’ve only seen him run once, when he broke his maiden, and so I thought, ‘You know what? I’m just going to stay away and wish everybody a lot of luck.’ And it turned out good. I’m surprised that they didn’t call the bomb squad or something. I was screaming and hollering, they might have thought somebody was getting killed. It’s been a ride. Hopefully there’ll be more, but yeah, we’ve had a lot of fun.” View the full article

Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) will auction Triple Crown winner Justify’s halter at their annual fundraising event Bourbon and the Bayou. The Mardi-Gras themed event will be held Mar. 1 at the Carrick House in Lexington, Kentucky. “Individuals interested in the halter or any of the other amazing products we have can bid on the items online without attending the event and from any location. The wonderful part is all of the proceeds from the auction and event go directly to provide advocacy for child abuse and neglect victims right here in our own community,” said Melynda Milburn Jamison, Executive Director of CASA of Lexington. View the full article

If a Derby favorite emerged from the pack this past weekend in the form of the GII Risen Star winner, Gary Barber’s War of Will (War Front), the race did more than propel a new potential superstar to the front of the pack: it also demonstrated the bond and unique working relationship between Mark and Justin Casse. Lucas Marquardt caught up with the brothers at the Casse Training Center in Ocala to talk War of Will, Derby, and how they think their late father, family patriarch Norm Casse, would feel about their partnership. LM: Justin, you bought War of Will at the Arqana May Breeze-Up Sale. Were you looking for prospects to bring back here? Justin: I’ve been to the yearling sales six or seven years in a row, as well as the December sale, but this was the first time I had gone over to the Breeze-Up Sale. I went over there to pinhook some horses. This horse stood out on paper and physically for me. So it made it an easy call to call Mr. Barber, who is a big fan of the sire. And I only called him about 30 minutes before the horse went in the ring because initially I thought the horse was going to bring more than we would like to spend. But I had heard that he might fall into the range we were looking for. LM: What about his breeze over there attracted you to him? Justin: He had a very good, very quick, turn of foot, and he was an excellent mover. He had one of the top five breezes on time in the sale. And when you went to the barn and you looked at him afterwards, he didn’t look like the type of horse that would be your typical quick breeze-up horse. He has a lot of scope to him. {"id":3,"instanceName":"Articles No Playlist","videos":[{"videoType":"HTML5","title":"War of Will & Casse Brothers","description":"","info":"","thumbImg":"","mp4":"https://player.vimeo.com/external/318554819.sd.mp4?s=dbeb19761034f07ff47476caab334bee44a48f7c&profile_id=165","enable_mp4_download":"no","prerollAD":"yes","prerollGotoLink":"prerollGotoLink","preroll_mp4_title":"preroll_mp4_title","preroll_mp4":"https://player.vimeo.com/external/304696815.sd.mp4?s=4a687365aaf92b968bfa97358c9b494e0eebafbc&profile_id=165","prerollSkipTimer":"5","midrollAD":"no","midrollAD_displayTime":"midrollAD_displayTime","midrollGotoLink":"midrollGotoLink","midroll_mp4":"midroll_mp4","midrollSkipTimer":"midrollSkipTimer","postrollAD":"no","postrollGotoLink":"postrollGotoLink","postroll_mp4":"postroll_mp4","postrollSkipTimer":"postrollSkipTimer","popupAdShow":"no","popupImg":"popupImg","popupAdStartTime":"popupAdStartTime","popupAdEndTime":"popupAdEndTime","popupAdGoToLink":"popupAdGoToLink"}],"instanceTheme":"light","playerLayout":"fitToContainer","videoPlayerWidth":720,"videoPlayerHeight":405,"videoRatio":1.7777777777778,"videoRatioStretch":true,"videoPlayerShadow":"effect1","colorAccent":"#000000","posterImg":"","posterImgOnVideoFinish":"","logoShow":"No","logoPath":"","logoPosition":"bottom-right","logoClickable":"No","logoGoToLink":"","allowSkipAd":true,"advertisementTitle":"Ad","skipAdvertisementText":"Skip Ad","skipAdText":"You can skip this ad in","playBtnTooltipTxt":"Play","pauseBtnTooltipTxt":"Pause","rewindBtnTooltipTxt":"Rewind","downloadVideoBtnTooltipTxt":"Download video","qualityBtnOpenedTooltipTxt":"Close settings","qualityBtnClosedTooltipTxt":"Settings","muteBtnTooltipTxt":"Mute","unmuteBtnTooltipTxt":"Unmute","fullscreenBtnTooltipTxt":"Fullscreen","exitFullscreenBtnTooltipTxt":"Exit fullscreen","infoBtnTooltipTxt":"Show info","embedBtnTooltipTxt":"Embed","shareBtnTooltipTxt":"Share","volumeTooltipTxt":"Volume","playlistBtnClosedTooltipTxt":"Show playlist","playlistBtnOpenedTooltipTxt":"Hide playlist","facebookBtnTooltipTxt":"Share on Facebook","twitterBtnTooltipTxt":"Share on Twitter","googlePlusBtnTooltipTxt":"Share on Google+","lastBtnTooltipTxt":"Go to last video","firstBtnTooltipTxt":"Go to first video","nextBtnTooltipTxt":"Play next video","previousBtnTooltipTxt":"Play previous video","shuffleBtnOnTooltipTxt":"Shuffle on","shuffleBtnOffTooltipTxt":"Shuffle off","nowPlayingTooltipTxt":"NOW PLAYING","embedWindowTitle1":"SHARE THIS PLAYER:","embedWindowTitle2":"EMBED THIS VIDEO IN YOUR SITE:","embedWindowTitle3":"SHARE LINK TO THIS PLAYER:","lightBox":false,"lightBoxAutoplay":false,"lightBoxThumbnail":"","lightBoxThumbnailWidth":400,"lightBoxThumbnailHeight":220,"lightBoxCloseOnOutsideClick":true,"onFinish":"Play next video","autoplay":false,"loadRandomVideoOnStart":"No","shuffle":"No","playlist":"Off","playlistBehaviourOnPageload":"opened (default)","playlistScrollType":"light","preloadSelfHosted":"none","hideVideoSource":true,"showAllControls":true,"rightClickMenu":true,"autohideControls":2,"hideControlsOnMouseOut":"No","nowPlayingText":"Yes","infoShow":"No","shareShow":"No","facebookShow":"No","twitterShow":"No","mailShow":"No","facebookShareName":"","facebookShareLink":"","facebookShareDescription":"","facebookSharePicture":"","twitterText":"","twitterLink":"","twitterHashtags":"","twitterVia":"","googlePlus":"","embedShow":"No","embedCodeSrc":"","embedCodeW":720,"embedCodeH":405,"embedShareLink":"","youtubeControls":"custom controls","youtubeSkin":"dark","youtubeColor":"red","youtubeQuality":"default","youtubeShowRelatedVideos":"Yes","vimeoColor":"00adef","showGlobalPrerollAds":false,"globalPrerollAds":"url1;url2;url3;url4;url5","globalPrerollAdsSkipTimer":5,"globalPrerollAdsGotoLink":"","videoType":"HTML5 (self-hosted)","submit":"Save Changes","rootFolder":"http:\/\/wp.tdn.pmadv.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/Elite-video-player\/"} LM: Did you think you were buying a turf horse initially, given that pedigree? Justin: Absolutely. I mean, I think anybody who tells you they’re going to France to buy a horse that’s going to run on anything other than turf, I don’t know if they’re being truthful with you. Obviously, we go to Europe looking more for turf horses. Sometimes you’ll find an American horse who stands out over there, or shows up over there, with dirt breeding. But no, not in this instance. Gary’s a great sportsman and a very willing participant, and a terrific owner to have. And he doesn’t take long to make decisions. So it made it very easy for me. LM: Mark, what was your first impression of War of Will when you got him in the barn? Mark: From the beginning, he’d walk out of the stall, and you’d watch him train, and say, “Wow.” And we’ve been saying, “Wow,” for a long time. And the more he trained the more I liked him. And I told Gary pretty early on, “I think we have something special.” LM: I was watching the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf last night. He really ran a fantastic race. I mean, he’s four or five wide around the first turn. Wide around the backstretch … Mark: He easily could have won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. He had a tough post. I think he ran 65 feet farther than the winner, and 90 feet farther than the second horse. And it’s a good thing he didn’t win the Breeders’ Cup, because if he had, I don’t know if I’d ever have run him on the dirt. We were anxious to try him on the dirt, and it was the last week at Churchill, and he had trained there and trained well. And so we said, “Well, yeah, let’s run him back.” People said, “Oh, well, he ran well in the mud, or in the slop,” but it was pretty dry. I wasn’t concerned at all that it was just about the mud. He laid off of it, and it was an extremely tough maiden race. And what gave me so much confidence about him was that he ran ten one-hundredths of a second slower than they ran the Kentucky Jockey Club, which was a good race in itself. It had had the second- and third-place finishers from the Breeders’ Cup in it, I believe. And Tyler shut him down the last hundred yards. So it gave me a lot of confidence after that. We went into the LeComte …I mean, I don’t usually say a whole lot, but I didn’t think that they would beat him. I’ve said this many times, good horses can win when everything goes their way. Great horses can win when things don’t go their way. Normally when I go into a race, I say, “Well, if things work out, we have a shot to win.” With him I just … I feel like it doesn’t really matter. He can overcome adversity, which is a great feeling. LM: The last couple races he seems to have made his own trips. Mark: If they want to go slow early, he’ll run, he’ll be on the lead. If they want him to run really fast, I think he can sit right behind them. So he’s the perfect Derby horse because you can get in so much trouble in the Derby if you get too far back. He usually breaks running. He’s pretty quick away from there. So I think that that’ll help him down the road. And I think it’s amazing in that he has it all. Here’s a horse that has this great pedigree. He’s beautiful. When you see him, you’ll say `wow.’ And he’s got to appeal to both sides. I think as a sire later on, you know, I think you could take him to Europe and do well. And with what he can do here on the dirt, I think he’s just the entire package. He amazes me. I’ve trained maybe 15 War Fronts. He looks like no other War Front I’ve ever had. Most of the War Fronts I’ve trained are a little more compact, and don’t have the length. This horse is a lot leggier. We spent a lot of time in the paddock for the Risen Star. They got us over there kind of early, so we walked around for 15 minutes. Most trainers only pay attention to their horse. I was watching as he would walk around and people would look at him. I mean, he is an amazing specimen. LM: Talk a little bit about your professional relationship. Mark: I’m so busy with training horses that I can’t get to all the sales and do everything. And I feel extremely confident in Justin and in what he buys. So it’s a good feeling. And I’d be lying if I didn’t think about my dad a lot and think, “I know my dad is up there smiling.” Because I think it would be really important, I know it was important, for us to work together, so I think we’re making him happy as well. Justin: I was thinking about it last night, and Mark may not remember this, but it was six or seven years ago after I’ll Have Another won the Kentucky Derby and I said to Mark, “I want to be Dennis O’Neill to your Doug O’Neill. And he goes, “Well, just find me a Derby horse.” It was like, “There you go. Easy.” Mark: I’m not the easiest. Sometimes, I can be a little hard on him, but I’m sure over the years it’s made him what he is. Justin: He taught me what to look for because we had a pinhooking background. We’d have to shop on a budget, and so we learned what we could live with and what we could afford within our means. And we invested so much of our own money, and still do. And so a lot of what I see in a horse, I know Mark would like. And then to add to that, I started traveling around the world and I started noticing what certain people would look for and what type of horse might suit a certain type of a program. And so I owe a lot to Mark in that regard because he helped me get the foundation that made me who I am as far as a judge of horses. Mark: What’s nice is now, like I said, I don’t feel like I have to be there. Justin knows what I like, and he’s learned that I’m not going to sugarcoat it. But I think we make a really good team. And I think we’re just kind of getting started. LM: How much of your style of horse, or what you’re looking for, is from what your dad liked in horses? Mark: Actually, really none. I loved my dad dearly. He was a pedigree guy. I’m a little different than the average trainer. I learned pedigrees first. The physique is more trial and error. I tell everybody that I do my own studies. I’ve been studying for 40 years so I know what’s been successful for me and what hasn’t. I can pretty well tell you when I look at a pedigree what the horse should look like and what’s been successful with that. And that just comes from doing it for a very, very long time. We have to protect our owners. And Justin will hear me say that many, many times. I have lots of owners who will run things by me and I’ll say, “No, no, no.” Because it’s our job to protect them. Because if we don’t do well, if we don’t do a good job, they’re not going to continue to do it. I worked for Mr. (Harry) Mangurian many years ago, and I had the utmost respect for him. He would always tell me, “It doesn’t matter how much money you have, you don’t like losing it.” And I’ve never forgotten that. View the full article