Retired Thoroughbreds Tizrobertcharles (Bwana Charlie) and Guidoinaspeedo (Meadow Monster), both members of the Davie Police Department's Mounted Patrol Unit, and Rockaway, a member of the City of Coral Gables mounted unit, will help present the colors before the playing of the National Anthem on Pegasus World Cup Day Saturday.
“Gulfstream Park focuses on racehorse aftercare to provide one time competitors a meaningful second career,” said Mike Lakow, Vice President of Racing at Gulfstream Park. “We welcome these athletes back to the track alongside local equestrian law enforcement. The Stronach Group supports accredited programs so these horses can be retrained, re-homed and retired to caring homes.”
Tizrobertcharles, retrained at the Florida Thoroughbred Retirement and Adoptive Care (TRAC), was adopted by the Davie unit by former trainer and facility manager/supervisor Gary Cortolillo. An 11-year-old who won his seventh and final start, Tizrobertcharles patrols the town daily and has attended several special events. Officer Mark Groeneveld, 'Charlie's' partner, has been an officer for 21 years and joined the mounted unit in 2019.
“What makes OTTBs so incredibly special in my eyes is their impeccable work ethic and desire to please,” said Katie Schmit, farm manager and trainer at TRAC. “They are meticulously bred to win and thus have an inherent need to feel successful. The exposure they receive at such a young age gives them a huge step up when their racing careers are over.”
Guidoinaspeedo, a 9-year-old, also won once in seven starts while racing in the Mid-Atlantic. 'Buddy,' as he's affectionately called, has been with the mounted unit since 2015. Officer Richard Spradling, 'Buddy's' partner, has been an officer since 2007 and joined the mounted unit in 2019. Rockaway, who raced 10 times in South Florida, is the first documented police horse in Coral Gables in nearly 90 years. Rockaway served as a flag horse at Bergeron Rodeo. His partner is Officer Ashley Sheran.
Saturday's Pegasus World Cup Day card is highlighted by the $3-million GI Pegasus World Cup Championship Invitational and $1-million GI Pegasus World Cup Turf Championship Invitational.
Live horse racing returns to Prairie Meadows Casino, Racetrack, & Hotel on Friday, April 30 when the Altoona, Ia. facility opens its 32nd season of Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse action.
On Thursday, Jan. 21, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission (IRGC) approved an 84-day 2021 race meet for Prairie Meadows.
The season begins with 26 days of Thoroughbred-only racing from April 30 – June 14 and continues with a mixed Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse schedule for the remaining 58 race days through Sept. 25.
Live racing will be offered on a Friday – Monday schedule, with post times set for 6 PM CDT on Fridays and Saturdays, and 4 PM CDT on Sundays and Mondays, with exceptions for special race days, events, and holidays.
Horsemen should note that Condition Book 1 and stall application for the 2021 season will be posted online in the Horseman's Information area of Prairie Meadows' website at www.prairiemeadows.com/racing/horsemens-info and is also available in hardcopy form via mail or at Prairie Meadows Racing Office.
Condition Book 1 will include the first 18 days of the 2021 season (Thoroughbred-only racing). Stall Applications will be due in the Racing Office on Wednesday, March 24.
The barn area is scheduled to open for horses on Friday, April 2 and training is set to begin on Sunday, April 4, weather permitting.
Prairie Meadows will offer 32 Thoroughbred stakes races in 2021 (including overnight stakes) worth an estimated $2.92 million. The highlights of the Thoroughbred stakes calendar are the Iowa Festival of Racing on Friday, July 2 and Saturday, July 3 and the traditional Iowa Classic stakes races on Saturday, Sept. 25.
In addition, the track will offer 23 Quarter Horse stakes races in 2021 worth an estimated $1.6 million, highlighted by the Bank of America/Prairie Meadows Regional Challenge Finals on Saturday, Aug. 14 and Sunday, Aug. 15, Prairie Meadows Quarter Horse Championships on Friday, Sept. 24, and Iowa Classic stakes races for the Quarter Horses on Saturday, Sept. 25.
Quarter Horse connections are reminded that Futurity and Derby nomination forms are available online, by mail, or by request through the Prairie Meadows Racing Office.
Payment schedules begin March 1 for the Prairie Meadows Gold Futurity and Derby, Hawkeye Futurity, Cyclone Derby, and Iowa Quarter Horse Stallion Futurity and Derby.
Payment schedules begin April 1 for the Valley Junction Futurity, Altoona Derby, Jim Bader Futurity, and Polk County Derby.
Among the best claims of the 2020 Oaklawn meeting occurred last April when owner/trainer Karl Broberg took Hunka Burning Love for $32,000 out of a seventh-place finish in a 1 1/8-mile event for older horses. Broberg didn't have to shake for the gelding, either.
All Hunka Burning Love has done in 10 starts for Broberg is win eight races, including four stakes, by a combined margin of more than 43 lengths and bankroll $259,199. Broberg had previously claimed Hunka Burning Love for $50,000 in September 2019 at Churchill Downs, but lost him for $62,500 less than a month later when, in his only start for the trainer, the gelding beat just one horse in an allowance/optional claiming sprint at Keeneland.
Clearly, Broberg hit a home run after taking his second swing at Hunka Burning Love.
“I wish I could say I had some grand master plan,” Broberg said. “I just knew from the previous claim that the horse was sound and that he had speed and it was at the end of Oaklawn. I'm like, 'I know he's going to fit somewhere.' He still had his non-winner of two other than (allowance) condition at the time, so I didn't have any grand plan other than thinking there were going to be much softer spots ahead for him.”
Well-spotted regionally, Hunka Burning Love dominated in two starts at Will Rogers Downs in Oklahoma before claiming the $75,000 Lone Star Mile in June at Lone Star Park in Texas, $75,000 Governor's Cup Stakes in August at Remington Park in Oklahoma, $100,000 Delta Mile Stakes Nov. 28 at Delta Downs in Louisiana and the $60,000 Jeffrey A. Hawk Memorial Stakes Dec. 18 at Remington Park in his last start.
Hunka Burning Love, North America's co-winningest horse in 2020, is scheduled to begin his 2021 campaign in Saturday's $150,000 Fifth Season Stakes at Oaklawn.
Hunka Burning Love began his racing career for the high-profile connections of trainer Mike Maker and owners Ken and Sarah Ramsey, competing against top runners like McCraken, Warrior's Club, Cool Arrow, Uncontested, Chief Know It All and Guest Suite before falling down the class ladder. Guest Suite won the first division of the 2020 Fifth Season.
“He's been a solid horse throughout his career,” Broberg said. “He's got heart. He's just professional. The thing that's funny about him is after every race, he doesn't pull up. He wants to run right back around again, which is funny for the jocks on him for the first time.”
Broberg, the country's perennial leader in victories, said the Fifth Season will be Hunka Burning Love's biggest challenge since he re-claimed the 7-year-old son of super sire Into Mischief.
The 1-mile Fifth Season also attracted millionaire Grade 1 winner Combatant, Grade 3 winner Night Ops, second-division 2020 Fifth Season winner Pioneer Spirit and Silver State, a sharp winner of his last two starts. Hunka Burning Love, 6-1 on the morning line, is winless in four Oaklawn starts.
“If this fails, then I'm going to give him a break for a few months and we'll come back elsewhere,” Broberg said.
Hunka Burning Love has a 16-4-6 mark from 46 lifetime starts and earnings of $517,329.
Trainer Jose D'Angelo put thousands of miles on his truck last year while giving his stable star, Jesus' Team, a tour of East Coast and Midwest racetracks.
“When Jesus' Team left Florida to go to Monmouth, when he went from Monmouth to Saratoga and back to Monmouth, when he went to Pimlico and when he went to Kentucky and back to Florida, I drove him there in the truck,” said D'Angelo, recalling the extensive road trip that produced Grade 1 placings in the Preakness (G1) at Pimlico and Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1) at Keeneland, as well as a lifetime of memories for a horsemen who was only in his first full year of training in the U.S. “Everywhere he went, I drove the truck.”
After hitting the road with Grupo 7C Racing Stable's reformed claimer for a full schedule of major stakes engagements last year, the 30-year-old native of Caracas, Venezuela will save a lot on gas for the 4-year-old son of Tapiture's 2021 debut start in Saturday's $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) at Gulfstream Park. Jesus' Team will only have to make the short trip from his home at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream's satellite training facility in Palm Beach County, to compete in the 1 1/8-mile Pegasus, which will co-headline Saturday's program with the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational (G1).
“I'm very excited about the race. I feel blessed,” D'Angelo said. “I feel like Jesus is going to run a big race Saturday, but I'm also very nervous.”
D'Angelo may have a case of big-race jitters leading up to the Pegasus World Cup, but that doesn't mean that he lacks confidence in his horse or his ability to bring him into one of the world's richest races in peak form. He's been there, done that in Venezuela.
He grew up in a Thoroughbred racing family, the son of trainer Francisco D'Angelo, the leading trainer in Venezuela on multiple occasions, and the grandson of a prominent Thoroughbred journalist. After attending university to study business administration for two years, D'Angelo dropped out to pursue a training career with his father's blessing.
“I learned everything I know from my father. He was a great trainer in Venezuela. He won many titles in Venezuela. He is my role model, 100 percent,” he said.
D'Angelo experienced a full range of emotion at La Rinconada after saddling his first starter at the end of 2012.
“My first race I won, but he was disqualified,” D'Angelo said. “The horse's name was Dasha. It was the 23rd of December.”
Merry Christmas, indeed.
D'Angelo's spirits were quickly lifted when he saddled his first official winner with his third starter, Queen Norma, at La Rinconada.
In 2014, D'Angelo saddled Dreaming of Gold for a victory in the Clasico Simon Bolivar, becoming the youngest trainer to saddle the winner of Venezuela's most prestigious race.
“When the horse won his first race for me, I told the owners, 'We have the horse to win the Clasico Simon Bolivar.' They looked at me like I was crazy,” D'Angelo said. “Dreaming of Gold wasn't the best horse in Venezuela, but he beat the best horses. Jesus wasn't the best horse in Florida, but he beat the best in Florida and ran in the Preakness and Breeders' Cup. Both horses are very, very similar.”
D'Angelo had continued success and achieved his goal of becoming the leading trainer in Venezuela in 2018.
“It was my goal. After that, I moved to Florida,” said D'Angelo, who joined his father, who had ventured to South Florida in 2015 to resume his training career. “To come here was always my dream.”
D'Angelo, who had saddled Forze Mau for a second-place finish in the Copa Velocidad on the 2017 Clasico del Caribe undercard at Gulfstream while based in Venezuela, saddled his horse since relocating to the U.S. at Gulfstream Park June 8, 2019, when Cocktail Skirt came up a nose short of victory while finishing second in a $12,500 claiming race. He broke through with his first U.S. victory with his third overall U.S. starter, Beach Dreaming, whom he had claimed out of a $12,500 claiming race and went on to score at the same level June 27, 2019. D'Angelo didn't have to sweat out an inquiry following the 5-year-old mare's dominating 2 ¼-length victory, but she was claimed out of the race.
D'Angelo quickly established himself in South Florida while finishing the 2018 season with 15 victories from 57 starters. His early success certainly was a contributing factor to Jesus' Team being transferred to his stable last spring, a partnership that also achieved early success. The Kentucky-bred colt, who had broken his maiden in his fifth career start for a $32.000 claiming price, won at first asking by 6 ¾ lengths in a $25,000 claiming race at Gulfstream May 8.
“When he won, I thought that race was very impressive. When he came back to the barn it was like he didn't race,” D'Angelo said. “The next time he worked, the way he galloped out, he was a different horse.”
Jesus' Team made a significant jump in class next time out in a June 10 stakes-quality optional claiming allowance at Gulfstream, in which he finished second behind graded-stakes winner Sole Volante, who went on to run in the Belmont Stakes (G1) and Kentucky Derby (G1), and ahead of Florida Derby (G1) runner-up Shivaree.
“He ran green in that race, but he finished second with a big heart,” his trainer said.
D'Angelo revved up his truck, led Jesus' Team onto a van, and hit the road for an amazing adventure that included a fourth-place finish behind Authentic in the Haskell (G1) and a second-place finish in the ungraded Pegasus at Monmouth, a third-place finish in the Preakness, and a second-place finish in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile behind likely Pegasus favorite Knicks Go. Jesus' Team tuned up for the Pegasus with a victory in the Dec. 5 Claiming Crown Jewel upon his return to Gulfstream.
“I would like to be a great trainer in this amazing country and have great horses to run in the big races,” D'Angelo said. “The experience I lived last year was the best in my life, for sure.”
