Wandering Eyes

When griffin racing was a larger part of the season than it has become in recent years, trainer John Moore carried an almost Harry Potter-esque nickname in the racing press, “The Griffin Master”, and he again showed why when he worked his wizardry for a rousing debut by Styling City on Sunday. In the Ling family colours which have been carried to high level success by the likes of Charming City, Sterling City and Leading City, Styling City was able to replicate a winning debut by... View the full article

One opinion was that “he’s not human” after Umberto Rispoli won on the Michael Freedman-trained Fiama at Sha Tin just 23 days after breaking his collarbone in three places following a nasty fall in a barrier trial. He immediately vowed that he would be back in record time and asked trainers not to give his rides to other jockeys. It seemed a bold call at the time but Rispoli resumed last week and Fiama was only his 13th ride back from the injury, successfully resuming an... View the full article

Wootton (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}) was acquired by Godolphin from breeder Haras de Quetieville after plundering his Aug. 22 debut by six lengths going one mile at Deauville and backed up that promise with a similarly dominant performance in the Oct. 19 Listed Prix Isonomy back over that course and distance last time. Sent to the front after the initial strides of this sophomore return, he was shaken up at the quarter-mile marker and came under ever-increasing pressure as the tenderly handled Olmedo (Fr) (Declaration of War) persisted in forcing him to pull out all the stops inside the final eighth to register a career high in game fashion. “We had some minor niggles with him over the winter, but they all cleared in time and I’m delighted with that performance,” claimed trainer Alex Pantall. “He was on edge beforehand, but he behaved that way on debut and perhaps he was a little too fresh. Leading was not a problem as he settled well and Mickael [Barzalona] was patient from the front. He waited and waited until asking for Wootton’s main effort. There’s no doubt he has room for improvement and will come on a lot for the run, both physically and mentally. Faster ground will not be a problem so we will come back here for the [May 13 G1] Poule d’Essai des Poulains.” Jean-Claude Rouget was proud of the runner-up’s run and indicated a rematch was on the cards for the front two, adding, “Olmedo ran a great race. We’ve had a bad winter and I’ve been unable to prepare my team as I’d have liked so that run was most encouraging. I think the first and second are two very good horses, finishing clear of the remainder. We’ll be back in the Poulains hoping to reverse the result and I don’t think there is anything to compete with these two.” Wootton is the leading performer produced by G3 Prix du Calvados placegetter American Nizzy (Fr) (American Post {GB}) and he is a half-brother to the 2-year-old colt Hot Summer (Fr) (Sommerabend {GB}) and the yearling colt Magic Baron (Fr) (Dabirsim {Fr}). American Nizzy is a granddaughter of Listed Prix Isola Bella victress Quittance (Riverman), who in turn is out of a winning half-sister to GISP GII Del Mar Invitational Oaks heroine Suivi (Diesis {GB}). Sunday, Longchamp, France PRIX DE FONTAINEBLEAU-G3, €80,000, LCP, 4-15, 3yo, c, 8fT, 1:47.33, hy. 1–WOOTTON (FR), 128, c, 3, by Wootton Bassett (GB) 1st Dam: American Nizzy (Fr) (GSP-Fr, $107,781), by American Post (GB) 2nd Dam: Quietude, by Woodman 3rd Dam: Quittance, by Riverman O-Godolphin SNC; B-Ecurie Haras de Quetieville (FR); T-Henri-Alex Pantall; J-Mickael Barzalona. €40,000. Lifetime Record: 3-3-0-0, €73,500. Werk Nick Rating: F. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. 2–Olmedo (Fr), 128, c, 3, Declaration of War–Super Pie, by Pivotal (GB). (€100,000 Ylg ’16 ARAUG). O-Ecurie Antonio Caro & Gerard Augustin-Normand; B-Dream With Me Stable Inc (FR); T-Jean-Claude Rouget. €16,000. 3–Louis d’Or (Ire), 125, c, 3, Intello (Ger)–Soudanaise (Ire), by Peintre Celebre. (€27,000 Ylg ’16 AROCT). O-Camille Garnier; B-Dayton Investments Ltd (FR); T-Tony Castanheira. €12,000. Margins: HD, 3HF, 1 1/4. Odds: 2.00, 1.60, 8.70. Also Ran: Rostropovich (Ire), Mind Mapping. Click for the Racing Post result or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree. Video, sponsored by Fasig-Tipton. View the full article

How did you make the decision to go to the races for the first time? Had you read about the sport and was your interest sparked? Had you a friend who was passionate about racing? Perhaps your family was involved in horses? No matter your journey to the sport, there is one universal truth in each individual journey–your decision was influenced. It was influenced by what you read. It was influenced by your friend’s passion. It was influenced by your family’s involvement. Human decisions are shaped by those around us. Today, if we want to transform the reach of our sport, the answer is simple, we need to each take personal responsibility for widening our sport’s collective influence. Influence is the capacity to affect decisions, a quest that should obsess racing’s leaders worldwide. But what does influence look like today? Step forward, social media star Kylie Jenner, showing her discontent with the new version of social media platform Snapchat, Kylie tweeted her decision to stop using the app “soo does anyone else not open Snapchat any more? Or is it just me . . . ugh this is so sad.” Kylie did not profit from the tweet but Snapchat lost over $1bn in value in 24 hours in the sell-off on the stock market that followed the tweet. With the influence that one person and one tweet can now have, inevitably, this process has been commercialized. “Influencers” are social media “stars”, like Kylie, who have monetised their followers by posting pictures and endorsing brands or, in the case of President Trump, capitalized on the platform given by social media for extraordinary political gain. On Instagram alone (a photo sharing platform), the global influencer market is now worth over $1.5 billion. Influencers with over 100,000 followers are paid around $1,000 per post in support of a brand. The more followers, the higher the multiple in cost per post. Consumers agree it works. 84% of millennials say that user-generated content has some influence on what they buy. Racing, whether it likes it or not, will soon be at a marketing crossroads. Should it pay to influence the next generation of racegoers by using these “stars”? At first glance, using social media stars with large followings within easy reach is an appealing option for racing. Look at the success of Conor McGregor in advertising the first Pegasus World Cup. Look at the hype generated by Usain Bolt DJ-ing at the Melbourne Cup carnival. And yet, the impact while initially large, is fleeting and hollow. I don’t see Conor and Usain rocking up with legions of followers in top hats to Royal Ascot anytime soon. Where then should we look for answers? Let me float a kite with you. Kitesurfing, without financial backing, has become one of the fastest growing sports in the world in attracting newcomer participants. It has done this, just as racing could, by harnessing the modern mediums of influence. The exotic locations are documentated on Instagram. The experiences are captured on GoPros. Participants connect and inform each other of the best conditions on WhatsApp. Since its arrival in the 1990s, it now counts Google founder Larry Page, entrepreneur Richard Branson, former secretary of state John Kerry and one a half million others as its devotees. That’s real, decision-making, influence. We, as a sport, need to understand how we most make a cultural impact. The Queen is the most recognisable face in the world. To quantify the prestige and economic impact she has on British racing would be to belittle it. Winx has transported Australian racing from the back pages to the front. American Pharoah gave American racing the champion it craved. People want to take photos and document that they are part of a story that is special, whether it is by sharing in the Queen’s personal passion or witnessing history. That is real, authentic influence that draws new people to the sport. Just think of the moments that shaped your initial interest in the sport? I don’t think it was a particularly well worded ad in the newspaper. We don’t need thousands of followers, what we need is an industry-wide commitment to create meaningful, impactful content using the free tools available to us. After all, the first ever motion picture video was of a galloping horse. We need to become our own influencers. ITV Racing is leading from the front and while their viewing figures might not be matching those of Channel 4, they understand that viewing figures are just one metric and their influence can be much greater by extending the range of mediums that they use. They’ve championed with viewers a social media stable so viewers can interact with presenters during the broadcast. They do Facebook Live feeds before and after the broadcast. And by producing podcasts they demonstrate an understanding that video isn’t the only format in which racing fans want to consume their content. The power is with us all. Each conversation you have explaining racing to a stranger widens our impact. Ger Lyons does a wonderful job with a Facebook blog in being as open and transparent as possible about his horses. And each tweet you post widens our influence in the digital conversation. Antoine Griezmann is one of the world’s best footballers and a passionate owner of racehorses. He has tweeted to his 5m followers about his colt Tornibush with Philipe Decouz and uploaded photos of his racing colours hanging at home. Each video you take opens up our sport to be discovered by more people. Take a look at the wonderful videos Godolphin are producing this year. It shouldn’t be so radical to suggest that every racing authority worldwide needs to develop a branding team not just to widen the authority’s reach through their own internal channels but to empower our own sport’s participants to become influencers. Drones should be available to rent free to trainers so that they can show off their facilities or tape key pieces of work. Media training should become part of a jockey’s licensing. Breeders should be shown examples like Arrowfield and given the tools to capture the amazing development of the potential racehorse from its earliest tottering steps. This isn’t a 100m dash with Usain, this needs to be a sustained, committed campaign, with ownership of the task ahead given to our greatest influencers – you. How are you going to influence the next generation of racegoers? Your influence will shape their decisions and our sport. View the full article

Willie Browne was already on the plane when he got the call. “Well Jim?” The airport couldn’t be handier, just over the road from Keeneland as it is. Even so Browne had run out of time, and been obliged to head across before Hip 2169 took his turn at the 2016 September Sale. But his compatriot Jim McCartan had liked the colt too. And now he was calling from the back walking ring. “We’ve a problem here,” said McCartan. “This horse is a cribber.” Some 18 months later–back home in Co Tipperary, just next to Coolmore–Browne shakes his head as he recalls one of the most momentous conversations in 40 years of passing young horses through the sieve of his instincts, as both stockman and trader. “That was the first we knew of it,” he says. “Up till then I’d say we might have been ready to give 60 or 70 grand for the horse. If you come up from a National Hunt background–and that’s where we started–you want them to fill your eye. And he’s a big, substantial horse. But there was I, over in Bluegrass [Airport], and he’s a cribber.” Forty years, during which he has become the doyen of a trade that didn’t really exist when he started. The first European breeze-up sale, at Doncaster in 1977, was conceived largely as a clearing house for horses that had fallen through the cracks as yearlings. As Browne recalls, Tally Ho was the only other outfit that saw the potential straightaway. Nowadays there are dozens of consignors trying to make it pay, polishing up rough-diamond yearlings into ready-to-run juveniles. But it is still Browne whose example they follow; still Browne, whose five steep furlongs of woodchip they borrow to hone their horses for the sales. The day before TDN‘s visit, no fewer than 95 outside horses had been boxed over to join his own string at Mocklershill. One consignor was making a five-hour round trip from Co Kerry for the fourth morning running. Yet the biggest touch of the lot, a story to sustain them through the darkest, coldest feed rounds of the winter, was contingent on the luck–the sheer vagueness and fatalism–of what Browne agreed with McCartan next. “Listen, follow him in,” he said. “And if he’s cheap, buy him.” Cheap? What did that mean? Where would they have left him, this cribber by a sire who had been unable to keep his old Kentucky home? “That’s a good question,” shrugs Browne. “I would have guessed if we went over 20, maybe?” As it was, the colt—culled by the same farm that had exported his father Street Sense to Japan—was theirs for $15,000. “The sire was cold, I suppose,” Browne says. “They had shipped him off at that stage, and then he started showing signs that maybe they’d got rid of the horse too soon. Of course he has gone full circle since, he’s back in fashion now.” Just seven months later Browne and McCartan sold the son of Street Sense for €1.4-million at the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale. The purchaser was Kerri Radcliffe, for Phoenix Thoroughbreds; and while those two parties have since gone their separate ways, the horse himself (as Walk In The Sun) has won both his first starts. Browne doesn’t want any numbers repeated, because it is no longer his business; but he understands that the owners have turned down a hefty profit even on what they paid in Deauville. “He trained probably as good as I’ve ever had,” he says. “He looked huge, like he shouldn’t be quick. But he was. I’d been touting him for weeks before Deauville. And he did a fantastic breeze, there was only one horse quicker all day.” With his white hair and a penetrating eye behind his spectacles, Browne has something of a barn owl about him as he settles over his tea in the stable office. He gestures towards the gallops. “Sometimes, of course, you’re very happy up there,” he says. “And then on the day you’re let down. But everything gelled with that horse. The strangest thing was that Darley sold him for 15 grand, and Fergie [John Ferguson, then still Sheikh Mohammed’s bloodstock manager] bid 850 for him. In fairness, you have to say they’re not small-minded people. Okay, they sold him. But they were prepared to do something about it.” The big players’ interest in a Mocklershill horse is testimony not only to their faith in Browne’s opinion–vouchsafed with reliable candour–but also to his own adaptability. Because the obsession with times has become such that even the most respected horseman of the old school will not get full value for a horse who puts in a mere breeze, when everyone else is gunning for something closer to a tornado. Browne was filled with admiration by Niall Brennan’s recent stand, in TDN, over the enslavement of the American market to the bullet breeze. Browne, likewise, admits that much of the pleasure has gone out of the game since the arrival of the clockers on the European scene. But the fact that Mocklershill remains an undiminished force in the market suggests that even Browne has had to compromise. With a sheepish look, he reluctantly draws from his pocket Exhibit A: a stopwatch. “Actually I put in a timing system some years ago,” he admits. “It was quite elaborate. Worked from a satellite in the sky. But when you did your breeze, you had to put certain equipment on the horse. And when jockeys saw that, the whole game changed: they were more revved than the horses. So I only did it for two years. It wasn’t any good for the horses. So now, secretly…” He sighs, and restores the gadget to his pocket. “Listen, it’s not an exact science. And I half judge it with my eye. But if then you look at your watch, and it matches up, it gives you that little second opinion.” He still considers himself a traditionalist and would be nervous of the legacy risked by those giving horses more of a powder-keg preparation. Even the more temperate approach, after all, will expose any mental fragility in some animals. “But to be fair to them, those horses that do the fast breezes—they do tend to go on, despite being ‘gunned’,” he says. “I suppose we’re living in different times, you know, there’s probably more pressure everywhere. That the whole thing is governed by the clock, it doesn’t sit easy on me. To get this breeze time, you have to do stuff you’d prefer you didn’t have to. But remember you’ll have the same carry-on if you go to a racing stables. The biggest thing in a racehorse is his mind. Whatever his ability, if you can’t cope mentally you’re in trouble anyway. “There are so many ways of doing this. But [the overall model] does work. You go to the better tracks in England, from August on, and every second horse in the maiden is a 400 grand, 500 grand yearling. If I sell a horse for 400 grand, I want it to work out well! So many of those expensive yearlings never do anything. Yet everyone’s very quick to jump on the bandwagon where the breeze-ups are concerned.” Browne has earned the right to have his opinion heeded, whatever the clock might say. True, he finds that people visiting his barn at the sales sometimes hand the list straight back to him and ask him to pick out the viewings instead. That can be awkward if he has a couple of dozen lots to move on. At the same time, all the airy talk you hear among buyers–to the effect that the clock is just one factor among many–is simply not matched by deeds. “People will listen to a degree,” Browne says. “But when they get the timesheets… I had a filly last year in Doncaster, I think she was half a second, maybe six-tenths off the best one. And would you believe she was 41st on the list. I was very happy with her breeze but if you have to go right down there to find her, and you don’t know your stuff…” Sometimes, mind, it pays to go against the crowd. His Deauville coup, for instance, rewarded his unswerving faith in the American Thoroughbred. With Mark Dwyer, a regular collaborator, he will reckon to see 60% at Keeneland from Book 2 through to the second week. That is some amount of legwork for a septuagenarian, even one with a 9-year-old son to keep him on his game. But he is puzzled that most Europeans rely on the breeze-ups as an import agency. “Somewhere in the middle there, American horses went out of fashion,” he says. “But I think that wheel is on the full cycle now. And even though Keeneland is the most competitive market in the world, there’s still better value there than at most of the European sales. You just have to work at it.” Browne–like Dwyer, and so many other breeze-up consignors–learned the ropes with steeplechasers. His father rode in several Grand Nationals, and they were trying (not terribly successfully) to scrape together a few quid, buying and selling jumpers, when the Doncaster experiment gave them a new option. “No doubt about it,” Browne says. “National Hunt people know their horses. I’d be very much into conformation; I love a good walk, a good hindleg. But at the end of the day, if you’re looking for a real good horse, pedigree is what matters. When people come to me at the sales, it’s always the big sire on your door they go to first. The mare never gets enough credit. For me she’s 75% of the whole job.” “If you go back 10 years, before time became such a factor, I would have been as brave as anyone to go in and buy a yearling. I’d give 200 grand if the horse had the looks and the pedigree. Because if you had a good individual and he went up there with a good action, at the worst you’re going to get your money back. But now if you give 200 or 400 for a horse, and he does a poor time, you’ve lost everything.” If that means you sometimes have to buy a cribber, demonstrably that isn’t always a bad thing. A significant portion of his Deauville profit was ploughed into relaying the woodchip. And it wouldn’t have taken long to get through the rest, with over 90 horses in his latest intake. Lest we forget, the only man to sell a seven-figure breezer in Europe before Browne at Deauville was–Willie Browne. When he draws attention to the framed newspaper headlines, however, it is with the very opposite of complacency. “See that there?” he says, pointing. “To be honest, I’d prefer to train a winner of a small race in Dundalk than to do that. Because there’s so much satisfaction out of it. It’s a magical feeling, training a winner. You get up in the morning, and he’s still there; it’s your project and it’s worked. I do train the odd one. Three at the moment. But if you’re a pinhooker you’ve got to be a pinhooker. If you start keeping some back that you like, you can’t make the rest of it credible.” “Ninety horses is too many. I’m no spring chicken. How long I can stay at it, I couldn’t tell you. There’s nothing better around for me anyway. As I say, the enjoyment left it slightly when the times came in. Anyway that’s how it is. It’s a great game, and we’ve had great fun at it.” View the full article

The West Coast invaders were in a race of their own when they entered the stretch in the $750,000 Oaklawn Handicap (G2) April 14 at Oaklawn Park. View the full article

Needing a top-two finish to ensure enough qualifying points for the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1), My Boy Jack delivered in the $200,000 Stonestreet Lexington Stakes (G3) at Keeneland April 14. View the full article

Needing a top-two finish to ensure enough qualifying points for the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1), My Boy Jack delivered in the $200,000 Stonestreet Lexington Stakes (G3) at Keeneland April 14. View the full article

Joe Peacock's Sunland Derby (G3) winner Runaway Ghost will miss the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) because of a shin injury, trainer Todd Fincher said April 14. View the full article

Bill Nack, widely recognized as one of the most talented racing writers of all time, passed away Friday at his home in Washington D.C. Nack died following a bout with cancer. He was 77. Best known for his work with Sports Illustrated, where he was employed from 1978 to 2001, Nack covered many sports, but racing was his primary assignment and his first love. His 1990 story Pure Heart on the passing of Secretariat was chosen as one of SI’s 60 most iconic stories. His 1975 book on Secretariat, “Secretariat : The Making of a Champion” is considered the definitive book on the 1973 Triple Crown winner. “Bill was a great reporter, a great writer a great friend, a great colleague,” said Steve Crist, the former racing writer for the New York Times who later became the publisher of the Daily Racing Form. “His work on Secretariat was the best turf writing ever done.” Nack was born in 1941 and moved with his family to Skokie, Illinois, at the age of 10. A graduate of the University of Illinois, he served briefly in the Army before taking over the racing beat at Newsday. It was with the Long Island, New York-based newspaper that he covered Secretariat’s career and began creating some of the most memorable prose ever written about perhaps the most memorable horse ever to race. “It was a very truthful rendition of what happened,” he said, recalling the Pure Heart story to writer Ted Keith in 2015. “I can still remember leaning against that hotel room wall and sobbing (When Secretariat died). That horse had meant a lot to me and my family.” Whatever Nack wrote about, he did it better than most. Also known as one of the best boxing writers of his era, Nack wrote about such diverse subjects as Sonny Liston, Rocky Marciano, the lingering feud. between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier after their careers ended, Bobby Fischer, Rick Pitino, Yankee Stadium and Keith Hernandez. His 1988 story about Robbie Davis’ struggles after a horse he was riding at Belmont struck and killed jockey Mike Venezia, is also considered one of the best and most moving articles ever written on the sport. “Bill and I met at Churchill Downs in the year of Riva Ridge (1972),” said former Washington Post racing columnist Andy Beyer. “We had a friendship that lasted 46 years. I loved Bill as a person. He was so engaging. But the main thing I will always remember about Bill was what he was like as a writer. I am somebody who takes the printed word very seriously and I always have. There is nobody in sportswriting or any form of journalism who I have ever come across who was the craftsman that Bill was. You knew how much hard work entered into every sentence he wrote but it never felt forced. He put words and sentences together so brilliantly.” Nack’s talents extended beyond his writing. He loved the written word and had an uncanny ability to remember lengthy portions of classic works. He enjoyed regaling audience’s by reciting the final lines of the Great Gatsby. Nack’s honors included the Walter Haight Award from the National Turf Writers Association, the Alfred G. Vanderbilt Lifetime Achievement Award from Thoroughbred Charities of America, the A.J. Liebling Award from the Boxing Writers Association of America, the ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sportswriting in 2017 and numerous Eclipse Awards. Nack is survived by his wife, Carolyne Starek, and four children. View the full article

Merlion Trophy next after Distinctive Darci's devastating win View the full article

Chairman's Trophy beckons for Maximus View the full article

Boy Wonder back on the right track View the full article

No trumping Zac Ace this time View the full article

Track conditions and course scratchings April 15 View the full article

Horses' body weights April 15 View the full article

Early scratchings April 15 View the full article

Despite facing pressure from Quip on the front end and drifting out in the lane, Magnum Moon proved best in the April 14 Arkansas Derby (G1) at Oaklawn Park to remain unbeaten in four starts. View the full article

It appeared Whitmore would spin his wheels for the entire stretch run of the $400,000 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3) April 14, but something changed in the final furlong. View the full article

MAGNUM MOON (c, 3, Malibu Moon–Dazzling Song, by Unbridled’s Song), the undefeated ‘TDN Rising Star,’ proved himself a big threat in the GI Kentucky Derby in three weeks with a powerhouse performance in the GI Arkansas Derby, running away in the stretch of the $1-million race despite drifting well out. A first-out winner Jan. 13 at Gulfstream, the $380,000 Keeneland September buy earned his Rising Star badge with a capital-E easy two-turn allowance score Feb. 15 at Tampa. Shipping to Hot Springs for his stakes debut, the bay made short work of the GII Rebel S. and came back in the meet feature as the 4-5 favorite. Away well, Magnum Moon took instant pressure from Quip (Distorted Humor) to his outside through a quick :23.34 quarter. Luis Saez backed down the pace aboard the favorite up the backstretch to the took of :48.60 and still had a handful of horse midway around the far turn. Challengers stacked up two to four deep nearing the top of the lane, but Magnum Moon cut the corner with plenty in reserve and burst clear past the three-sixteenths marker. From there, his only foe was his own immaturity, as he steadily bore out into the center of the track, but it was no matter as he sailed past the wire 4 1/2 lengths to the good in 1:49.86. Quip managed to hold for the place ahead of second choice Solomini (Curlin). Lifetime Record: 4-4-0-0, $1,177,800. O-Robert E. & Lawana L. Low; B-Ramona S. Bass LLC (KY); T-Todd A. Pletcher. View the full article

ALBEROBELLO (f, 3, Bernardini-Carson Jen, by Carson City), backed down to even-money off a close second on debut on the GII Tampa Bay Derby undercard Mar. 10, justified her short price and then some to post an impressive first victory. Drawing in off the also-eligible list and breaking from the far outside, the $475,000 KEESEP yearling chased newcomer Urban Insight (Street Sense) and ranged up to that one’s right flank turning for home. From there she pulled away and poured it on, cruising under the wire some eight lengths to the good in 1:23.99. Lifetime Record: 2-1-1-0. O-China Horse Club International. B-Bell Tower Thoroughbreds (Ky). T-Todd A Pletcher. View the full article

CITY OF LIGHT (c, 4, Quality Road–Paris Notion, by Dehere), heretofore a pure sprinting type, stretched out with aplomb in the GII Oaklawn H. Saturday, overcoming a wide journey and a tenacious runner-up to stamp himself as a serious player in the handicap division going forward. Going one for his first four, the $710,000 Keeneland September guy pulled off a 15-2 upset in the GI Malibu S. to close out his 3-year-old season and repeated as the favorite in the GI Triple Bend S. last out Mar. 10 at Santa Anita. Drilling a bullet five furlongs in :59 4/5 (1/71) last Sunday at his Arcadia base in preparation for this, the bay was given a 47-10 shot from the widest draw and broke alertly. He was hung four wide going into the clubhouse turn, however, before settling in fourth up the backstretch, a few lengths behind sharp splits of :22.97 and :46.63. Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky), favored off of a dominant win in the GI Santa Anita H. last out, made a bid for the lead three deep midway around the far turn, and City of Light followed him one path further out while under considerably less pressure to go. Those two separated themselves from the pack at the top of the lane, but City of Light quickly started doing the better work and opened up two lengths on his foe in midstretch. Accelerate was all heart though, and dug in to throw one last haymaker in the last sixteenth, but City of Light always had him measured, and hit the wire a half-length to the good in a sharp 1:48.26. The winner is a half to Pointsman (Mt. Livermore), SP, $212,417. Lifetime Record: 7-4-3-0, $940,600. O-Suzanne & William K. Warren, Jr.; B-Ann Marie Farm (KY); T-Michael W. McCarthy. View the full article

Her last start was a runner-up finish in the July 8 Belmont Oaks Invitational (G1T) at Belmont Park, but Peter Brant's Sistercharlie was primed for a big effort April 14 in the $350,000 Coolmore Jenny Wiley Stakes (G1T) at Keeneland. View the full article

SISTERCHARLIE (IRE) (f, 4, Myboycharlie {Ire}–Starlet’s Sister {Ire}, by Galileo {Ire}), unseen since finishing a neck second in the GI Belmont Oaks last summer, found running room in the stretch and burst away to take the GI Coolmore Jenny Wiley S. Saturday at Keeneland. Victress of the G3 Prix Penelope last spring at Saint-Cloud, the bay was a huge second with a terrible trip in the G1 Prix de Diane June 18 at Chantilly in her final start for trainer Henri-Alex Pantall. Making up a ton of ground into a slow pace at Belmont, she returned with a string of bullet workouts for this engagement and was adding Lasix as the 3-1 second choice. Traveling two deep on the clubhouse turn before angling to the rail and sitting seventh up the backstretch, Sistercharlie bided her time under John Velazquez behind fractions of :23.48 and :47.76. Continuing a ground-saving journey on the far bend, she angled out sharply into the three path outside the eighth pole, powered to the fore a sixteenth out and drew off to a convincing two-length success in 1:41.41. Fourstar Crook (Freud) rallied along the fence to get second money ahead of Off Limits (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) in a one-two-three finish for trainer Chad Brown. Sakes History: €12,000 Ylg ’15 AROOCT. Lifetime Record: 7-4-2-0, $731,403. O-Peter M. Brant; B-Ecurie Des Monceaux (Ire); T-Chad C. Brown. View the full article

Globetrotter Highland Reel (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}–Hveger {Aus}, by Danehill), will shuttle to Swettenham Stud in Victoria, Australia, the stud announced on Saturday. He will stand for A$15,000. A three-time Irish highweight, the bay won seven Group 1 races for a Coolmore partnership and trainer Aidan O’Brien and was placed in seven more. Among his wins are two editions of the G1 Longines Hong Kong Vase in 2015 and 2017, the 2016 GI Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf and 2015 GI Secretariat S. in the States, and the G1 QIPCO King George VI & Queen Elizabeth S., G1 Prince Of Wales’s S. and G1 Investec Coronation Cup–the latter two in 2017–in England. The son of Australian MGSP Hveger, herself a daughter of G1 Australian Oaks heroine Circles of Gold (Aus) (Marscay {Aus}), was also tested in the Southern Hemisphere, finishing third in the 2015 G1 Cox Plate in the wake of Winx (Aus) (Street Cry {Ire}). Successful in the G2 Vintage S. at two after a 12-length win at second asking, Highland Reel is also a full-brother to MGSW & MG1SP Idaho (Ire), who was runner up in the G1 Irish Derby and third in the English version. “Swettenham Stud is extremely excited to have secured Highland Reel from Coolmore Stud for stallion duties in the Southern Hemisphere,” Swettenham Stud principal Adam Sangster said. “And while he might be standing at our Nagambie base, Highland Reel’s appeal is truly global. With his tremendous race record and what is clearly a stallion’s pedigree, I’m highly confident he will attract broodmare owners from all states, particularly at such a competitive fee.” Said trainer Aidan O’Brien of the earner of $10,530,964, with 10 wins in 27 starts, “An incredible horse with pace and courage and tactical speed, he has everything.” View the full article