Englehart’s Stock Continues to Rise

[Wandering Eyes]

When he looks down his shedrow these days, trainer Jeremiah Englehart certainly sees a different caliber of horse than he did when he got his start in the sport. The affable 42-year-old son of Finger Lakes stalwart Chris Englehart scored a breakout victory in the 2013 GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies with Ria Antonia (Rockport Harbor), and now he’s got a crop of approximately 52 mostly six-figure juveniles who have been making serious noise this spring and summer. He’s had eight 2-year-old graduates on the NYRA circuit thus far in 2019, including a pair of stakes winners in ‘TDN Rising Star‘-earning Astoria S. heroine Maryanorginger (Strong Mandate) and Stillwater S. winner My Italian Rabbi (Competitive Edge), both for Al Gold’s Gold Square LLC.

On Wednesday Englehart will saddle Tuggle (Point of Entry) for NFL Hall of Famer Bill Parcells‘s August Dawn Farm in the GII With Anticipation S. at Saratoga.

A debut winner over subsequently stakes-placed Montauk Daddy (Daddy Long Legs) in a rained-off Belmont sprint June 21, the $160,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga buy was third last time in the GII Saratoga Special S. Aug. 10. This will be his first turf and two-turn attempt, but being by MGISW grass runner Point of Entry and out of a well-bred Phipps mare who was all turf, it’s hard not to expect a step forward with the surface switch.

“All along, I thought he’d be a little more turfy–he runs with some high action–but after his first race came off the turf and he won that, the Saratoga Special was up next, so it made sense to run,” Englehart said. “But I think it’s the right time to give him a shot on the turf.”

Englehart and Parcells teamed up last year to take the GIII Pilgrim S. on the Belmont grass with juvenile colt Forty Under (Uncle Mo), and they’ll also unveil New York-bred Moonachie (Central Banker) earlier on Wednesday’s card.

“Coach has a nice New York-bred who’s in on Wednesday,” Englehart said. “He’s shown some talent in a couple of works in the morning.”

Englehart also plans to enter a pair of fillies in Sunday’s GI Spinaway S.: New York-bred debut romper and ‘TDN Rising Star‘ Risky Mischief (Into Mischief), who was a $350,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-bred Yearlings purchase for Jeff Drown; and July 19 second-out graduate Sweet Kisses (Carpe Diem), a $290,000 FTKOCT long list of partners.

“Both have been training very well,” the conditioner said. “Risky Mischief has probably been my most professional 2-year-old as far as how she handles her business. She’s been very workmanlike all spring and summer long and has done everything I’ve asked her to do. Sweet Kisses has been a little bit more of a project, back to when she was at Webb Carroll Training Center. She’s always had a lot of speed, but getting her to harness it and figure out gears has taken a little bit longer than we thought. She’s coming around now at the right time.”

Englehart nominated one colt, Parcells’s two-time runner-up Three Technique (Mr Speaker), to the GI Runhappy Hopeful S., but he’ll instead point the $180,000 Fasig-Tipton July grad to a maiden special weight this weekend. That’s not to say he isn’t extremely high on the colt, however, who has gone favored in both of his prior efforts and earned a solid 83 Beyer Speed Figure last out.

“As of right now, he could be my most talented 2-year-old,” Englehart said. “I think he wants further and he just hasn’t had a chance to show what he can do yet. In those shorter races, he didn’t get best of trips, and he’s still learning. I’d love to see him pick it up this time and get a win. I thought about running in the Hopeful because I knew who was going to be in there–you never know who’s going to show up in a maiden special weight at Saratoga.”

Englehart says being so well-stocked has allowed he and his clients to be extra patient in giving young horses time when they need it.

“I have some others that we’ve given some time off to to let them develop–they’ll probably be ready more towards Belmont,” he said. “It’s nice having a larger crop of 2-year-olds this year because you can just shut some down when you have to. At some point they’re going to get to the races–you just don’t want to press them. You’d much rather see them have a career than overdo it when they’re young.”

The aforementioned Maryanorginger, a $190,000 FTKJUL buy who overcame tons of trouble to turn heads on debut in the Astoria, is just starting back up after a setback and is expected to return to the races around October.

“She had a stress fracture in a hind ankle,” Englehart revealed. “We just found it by chance–she had some cellulitis and we took X-rays just to be sure and we found the stress fracture and decided to give her some time.”

Englehart estimates he has approximately 15-20 more babies than he had last year, and credits Webb Carroll Training Center owner and trainer Travis Durr, among several other early training outfits, with helping him build up and improve his stock. Englehart and Durr have shopped the sales together for the past three years or so.

“I rely a lot on Travis picking out horses,” he said. “If he likes one and I don’t or vice versa, we kind of stay away from those. We seem to just gravitate to the same ones these days. Before it was having champagne tastes on a Bud Light budget, and there you’d have to take some things into consideration and be forgiving whether it be pedigree or conformation. Now, being able to go after some of those nicer horses, the biggest thing is you need them to turn into racehorses and successful ones at that. When you get up to the $300,000, $400,000 or $500,000 range, you need to make sure that the owners are going to be able to recoup their investment. They know it’s not always going to work out, but you want to make sure you have a nice horse and develop that horse the right way.”

Englehart noted, “My clients are also allowing me to partner them up for certain types of horses, which a lot of people seem to be doing now, and it helps to be able to go after certain horses.”

Englehart employed that tactic at the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred Yearling sale earlier this month to secure that auction’s second topper, a $500,000 filly by Outwork consigned by Denali Stud as hip 495. The well-pedigreed bay was acquired by a partnership that includes Anna Seitz’s It’s All About the Girl Racing, Gold Square and Durr.

“For us, she was just a filly who had that look,” Englehart said. “She had a beautiful top line to her, a great walk, nice strong hip. Her shoulder angle was really nice. She just had everything we look for. Usually, between the two of us we can walk up to one and almost right away say, ‘Oh man–here’s the horse right here.’ We look for certain things, and it’s just the eye test. One thing that I’ve talked to Coach Parcells about is how similar finding football players who are athletes and horses who are as athletes can be. You try to find horses, or players, who remind you of other good horses you’ve had in the past. I think that’s why you see guys like Bob Baffert go to sales and, not only does he have a great team buying his horses, but he sees these other good horses–Chad [Brown], Todd [Pletcher], they’ve seen so many good ones before and they have a type.”

Englehart and Durr purchased a total of seven head at the New York-bred sale for a combined $1,030,000–from the $500,000 Outwork filly down to a $10,000 filly by another freshman son of Uncle Mo in Laoban.

While Englehart is certainly hoping to take home the hardware in the With Anticipation, a win by one of his competitors wouldn’t be the world result either–George Weaver trainee Our Country (Constitution) is a half-brother to the Outwork filly.

“Well, I’d definitely like to win the race,” he chuckled. “The same thing happened to me in the [July 28 GII] Amsterdam. I was running Wendell Fong (Flat Out), but Sweet Kisses, who I own a piece of, is a half to [romping winner] Shancelot (Shanghai Bobby). So, as much as I wanted to win that race, I was still happy to see what Shancelot did to help increase the value of Sweet Kisses.”

After Saratoga ends, Englehart will head down to Lexington for Keeneland September. He’s finally graduated to the big leagues, so to speak: “I’m going to head down for Book 1 for the first time this year.” he said. “I’ll probably stay for nine or 10 days and then come back home. I help coach my boys in football, and I don’t want to miss too much football.”

 

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