July, 2020 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Unpaid Bills And Disappearing Horses: Court Filings Detail Dispute Between Navarro, Zayat Receivership

As the court battle between Triple Crown-winning owner Zayat Stables and New York investment firm MGG Investments rages on, court documents filed this week show the receiver tasked with managing the diminishing stable has faced a challenge from indicted trainer Jorge Navarro.

Elizabeth Woodward, director of forensic accounting and litigation support at Dean Dorton Allen Ford, was appointed by a Fayette Circuit Court in January to manage the stable's assets. This primarily involves selling horses at public auction or overseeing the continued racing careers of some in hopes of increasing their value. As news spread earlier this year of the suit, which is based on more than $24 million in loans MGG claims Zayat Stables did not repay, other creditors began to emerge

Woodward filed a motion before Judge Kimberly Bunnell this week, asking the court to certify her calculation of money Navarro is owed by the stable. Woodward claims she was in contact with Navarro over the training of Zayat runners Paynted, Mony, and Perlman after being appointed to run the stable in January. Days before his federal indictment in March on charges related to doping of racehorses, Woodward says Navarro asserted a legal claim on the horses for unpaid bills by Zayat. Upon news of his arrest, Woodward said she immediately sought to remove the three horses from Navarro's barn.

Ten days after his arrest by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Navarro informed Woodward through attorney Bradford Beilly he planned to sell the horses to pay off the debt, which he claims exceeds $51,000.

“Contemporaneously with sending its Claim Notice, Navarro transported the Zayat Horses to an undisclosed location, without notice or permission from the Receiver, and in direct violation of the [Court] Order on or around March 19, 2020,” read Woodward's motion. “Escalating the conflict, on April 7, 2020, Navarro then scheduled a public sale for April 17, 2020 … Though it was unclear how Navarro could hold a commercially reasonable public sale as required by Florida statute at a time in which the state was closed for commerce by executive order and the horses themselves were secreted away to an unknown location, the Receiver took immediate steps to stop the proposed sale.”

Woodward secured a bond for the amount Navarro claimed he was owed and secured the horses nine days later and sold them at the Fasig-Tipton July Horses of Racing Age Sale for a combined $112,000.

Because of the specific expenses allowed and disallowed by Florida laws governing liens, Woodward now says the stable owes Navarro less than he claims. Previous findings in the case suggest the receiver isn't subject to bills incurred by the stable under Zayat's control, and only certain types of expenses such as feed and stabling (but not training) are permitted for agister's liens in Florida, according to Woodward's motion.

Rudy Rodriguez was awarded a $394,437.19 judgment for unpaid training bills by a New York court, and is hopeful he can collect his money before MGG is paid back from proceeds of sales or race purses by Zayat horses.

In other news related to the case this week, Judge Bunnell dismissed with prejudice MGG's claims against Bemak International, which facilitated a sale of American Pharoah breeding rights from the Zayat family to Orpendale. MGG is appealing that dismissal.

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Texas Summer Yearling Sale Catalog Available; HORA Session, Online Bidding to Be Offered

A catalog of 175 head is now online for the Texas Summer Yearling and Horses of Racing Age Sale, set for Aug. 24 at 12 p.m. CDT at Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie. Sponsored by the Texas Thoroughbred Association and Lone Star Park, the sale will welcome bidders on site with enhanced safety protocols and for the first time will also offer live online bidding for those who cannot attend in person. Online Bidders must be registered at one week before the sale, no later than 12 noon Aug. 17.

“We had to cancel our 2-year-old sale due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we’ve been working since then to ensure we are able to conduct this sale because of its importance to the region,” said Mary Ruyle, executive director of the TTA. “We normally wouldn’t have a horses of racing age session at this sale, but we are happy to offer that this year to fill the needs of consignors and buyers. The HORA section is quite impressive.”

The sale will kick off with a horses of racing age session, including 2-year-olds in training, and will be followed by a yearling session that includes 151 head. The online catalog and more information are available at www.ttasales.com.

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‘Quirky Old Horse’: Galleon Mast Needs The Right Timing In Mecke Stakes

Timing will be everything for Anne D. Scott's Galleon Mast in Saturday's $60,000 Mecke at Gulfstream Park.

The 7-year-old gelding has built a rather impressive resume during his 36-race career, winning 10 races, including six stakes, and finishing in the money in 29 races, including 16 stakes.

However, the son of Mizzen Mast has been a source of frustration for trainer David Fawkes due to his inclination to idle in the stretch after making the lead, a bad habit that has surely contributed to his total of 13 second-place finishes.

“It can get frustrating, but he's a good horse. He's a lot of fun to have in the barn. You want horses like him in your barn,” Fawkes said. “He's as good as any horse can be when he gets the right trip.”

The key to success for Galleon Mast is for the jockey to time things just right in the stretch, not giving the graded stakes-placed veteran an opportunity to idle by making the lead too far away from the finish line.

Galleon Mast appeared to be on his way to his seventh stakes victory in the Soldier's Dancer at Gulfstream June 6 after making a three-wide sweep off the turn into the homestretch under Paco Lopez. However, the Florida-bred gelding took the lead in mid-stretch, giving Muggsamatic more than enough time to mount a winning rally.

“Paco screwed up. He sent him too soon,” Fawkes said.

Lopez, who had been victorious in his two previous rides on Galleon Mast (in the 2018 and 2019 Sunshine Millions Turf Preview), is currently riding at Monmouth Park and will be replaced by Emisael Jaramillo, who finished a late-closing second last year the only time he has ridden Galleon Mast.

Prior to his second-place finish last time out, Galleon Mast finished eighth in the Pan American (G2), in which he never settled under Joe Bravo.

“That didn't work out at all. He's a very quirky horse. If he doesn't like you, he won't run a jump,” Fawkes said. “We had a situation when he came back from his long layoff, he dropped the exercise rider, because it wasn't his regular exercise rider, who was on vacation – and he's the kind of horse that never does anything bad. He's a neat horse, but he's a quirky old horse.”

Galleon Mast holds a wide advantage of stakes experience over his rivals in the Mecke, in which three of his rivals will step into stakes company after victories in optional claiming allowances – Owner/Trainer Louie Roussel III's Sailing Solo, D P Racing Inc.'s Harbour Master, and Donarra Thoroughbreds LLC's Lahinch.

Sailing Solo, a 5-year-old son of Smart Strike, was particularly impressive while making his Gulfstream debut June 26, registering a front-running 2 ¼-length victory under Hall of Fame jockey Edgar Prado. Harbour Master, a British import who was stakes-placed in California, rounded into form in his third start for trainer Patrick Biancone July 5, rallying to victory under Luca Panici. Joe Orseno-trained Lahinch, stakes-placed last year, scored by 1 ½ lengths in his second start off a long layoff June 5.

Champion Equine LLC's Battle of Blenheim, Jerick Llopiz's Forever Mo, Michael Newcomer's Il Faraone, Muzeyyen Karabulut's Sharm El Sheikh and My Purple Haze Stables' Thunder Ride round out the main body of the field.

Monarch Stables Inc.'s Art G Is Back tops a list of five main-track only entrants. The Ron Spatz-trained 4-year-old, a multiple-stakes winner on dirt who is also multiple stakes-placed on turf, is scheduled to make his 2020 debut if the Mecke is moved from the turf to the main track.

Louis Roussel III's Examiner, My Purple Haze Stables' Sqeezadios, Heehaw Racing's Snap Hook and Midnight Rider LLC's I'm a G Six are also main-track-only entrants.

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Champion Sistercharlie Returns To Action In Saturday’s Ballston Spa

Champion Turf Mare Sistercharlie will kick off her 2020 campaign in the 32nd running of Saturday's Grade 2, $200,000 Ballston Spa for older fillies and mares going 1 1/16 miles over the Mellon turf at Saratoga Race Course.

Trained by Chad Brown and owned by Peter Brant, Sistercharlie has put together a sensational record of 15-10-3-1, including seven Grade 1 triumphs while boasting $3,662,003 in lifetime earnings. In 2018, the daughter of Myboycharlie was named Champion Turf Female after winning all four of her Grade 1 efforts that year, which registered triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures. Two starts after kicking off her subsequent championship-worthy year with a victory in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland, she mimicked such winning ways in the Grade 1 Diana at Saratoga en route to Grade 1 scores in the Beverly D. at Arlington Park and the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Churchill Downs, where she beat six Grade/Group 1 winners.

Sistercharlie did not return to action until July 2019, where she notched repeat victories in the Diana and Beverly D. before winning the Grade 1 Flower Bowl Invitational at Belmont Park, where she joined 2010 Horse of the Year and Hall of Famer Zenyatta [who won nine straight] as the only other North American-based horse to win six straight Grade 1 events. She has not raced since November, finishing third to Iridessa in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita.

“She's been training really well,” said Brown, who is targeting a sixth Ballston Spa victory. “It's only a mile and a sixteenth, which is a little shorter than the Diana was last year, but she did it a couple of years ago in the Jenny Wiley. She's been ready to run for a little while now. It's great that he [Peter Brant] decided to race her as a 6-year-old. To have a star horse like this in training is good for the entire industry, so hopefully she has another great year.”

Sistercharlie has been training forwardly for Brown into her 2020 debut, most recently working a half-mile over the Oklahoma turf course in company with Eliade, completing the distance in 50.44 seconds.

“She did well. It was a final piece of work to get her to stretch her legs. She seems ready to go,” Brown said.

Bred in Ireland by Ecurie Des Monceaux, Sistercharlie is out of the Galileo broodmare Starlet's Sister and is a half-sister to Sottsass, a dual Group 1-winner in France.

Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez has been aboard Sistercharlie in all 10 of her North American starts and will have the call from post 5 as he attempts his sixth Ballston Spa triumph.

Brown also will send out maiden special weight winner North Broadway for Brant. The dark bay daughter of Quality Road was a 3 ½-length winner of her second career start on May 20 over the turf at Gulfstream Park before facing winners at Monmouth Park, where she was rank in the early stages, tracked in second and faded to sixth, beaten seven lengths as the favorite.

Jockey Tyler Gaffalione will pilot North Broadway from post 3.

Trainer Christophe Clement has enjoyed a superb start to the Saratoga meet, saddling two turf stakes winners with Decorated Invader in the Grade 2 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame and Speaktomeofsummer in the Grade 2 Lake Placid on back-to-back days, and will seek to keep such winning ways afloat when giving Call Me Love a cutback in distance.

Owned by R Unicorn Stable, the chestnut daughter of Sea the Stars is a two-time group stakes winner in Italy and seeks her first triumph since winning the Group 2 Premio Lydia Tesio on November 3. After making her North American debut with a runner-up finish to Rushing Fall going a mile and a sixteenth in the Grade 3 Beaugay on June 5 at Belmont Park, she finished fourth beaten eight lengths in the Grade 2 New York going 1 ¼ miles.

Clement will attempt a third win in the Ballston Spa having previously won with Danish [1996] and Penny's Gold [2001].

Jockey Joel Rosario will pilot Call Me Love from post 1.

Blue Heaven Farm's reigning Canadian Horse of the Year Starship Jubilee has done no wrong in her trio of starts this season and has not finished worse than third in her last 10 races. The Florida-bred bay mare will try to keep a consistent pattern intact while attempting an eighth graded stakes victory for trainer Kevin Attard.

Starship Jubilee has captured all three starts in her 7-year-old campaign, beginning at Gulfstream with scores in the Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf in January and the Grade 3 Suwanee River in February before taking the Grade 2 Hillsborough last out on March 7 at Tampa Bay Downs.

Attard said a planned layoff coincided with the interruption to the national stakes calendar amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We were planning on giving her a break anyway. We wanted to keep her fresh for this year,” said Attard. “At one point, we were pointing toward the Jenny Wiley at Keeneland in April but then COVID took over and plans changed. We sent her to the farm after her race at Tampa and she had a bit of a freshening before we got her back into training.”

Starship Jubilee enters Saturday's test off a four-month layoff, but her ledger includes eight works at Woodbine topped by a bullet half-mile breeze in 47.40 on July 18 on the dirt training track.

“I think she's ready. It took her a little bit longer to come around, but she is getting a little bit older,” said Attard. “Her last few works have been good and I saw enough in her last work that I think she's ready to ship and compete.”

Hall of Fame jockey Javier Castellano was aboard Starship Jubilee in her last out Hillsborough victory and retains the mount breaking from post 6.

Completing the field is Ballybrit Stable's Bramble Queen, who arrives off allowance optional claiming victories at Tampa Bay Downs and Delaware Park for trainer Michael Dini.

The 5-year-old Silent Name mare owns one stakes triumph, which took place in last year's Illini Princess Handicap at Hawthorne.

Jockey Jose Lezcano, who guided Laughing to a Ballston Spa score in 2013, will be aboard Bramble Queen from post 2.

Another Broad [post 4] has been entered for main track only.

The Ballston Spa is slated as Race 3 on Saturday's 11-race card, which offers a first post of 1:10 p.m. Eastern. Saratoga Live will present daily television coverage of the 40-day summer meet on FOX Sports and MSG Networks. For the complete Saratoga Live broadcast schedule, and additional programming information, visit https://www.nyra.com/saratoga/racing/tv-schedule.

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