Month: November 2021

Keeneland Completes Stable Area Improvements at The Thoroughbred Center

Keeneland has completed construction of six new barns and other enhancements at The Thoroughbred Center (TTC), its 245-acre, year-round training facility on Paris Pike on the northeast side of Lexington. The six new barns contain a total of 240 stalls and feature:

• Wider shedrows to accommodate safe winter training for horses housed year-round;
• Interior and exterior wash stalls;
• Dedicated interior feed rooms along with dedicated hay/bedding storage;
• Office tack rooms for trainers; and
• A stall layout design that maximizes lighting and airflow with spacious windows and doors to the benefit of a healthy training environment for both horses and people.

Additionally, improved and dedicated parking was created throughout the facility, and new muck pit construction segregates horse traffic from human and equipment traffic for safety during training hours.

“This investment reflects Keeneland's confidence in the future of the Thoroughbred industry and the strength of Kentucky racing,” Keeneland President and CEO Shannon Arvin said. “TTC is critical to the continued health of the Kentucky racing circuit. We are excited to make these improvements as part of our commitment to the horses and the people we serve.”

Funding for the TTC barn construction project was aided by $500,000 from the Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund, which included a matching program with counties in the region with residents who benefit from this investment by Keeneland in the TTC. Each county that collaborated on the project–Fayette, Lexington, Woodford, Scott and Jessamine–and the Kentucky Agriculture Development Board has a correspondingly designated barn named in appreciation of their commitment.

Keeneland has owned The Thoroughbred Center, which originally opened in 1969, since April 2000. The facility has two dirt tracks: 5 furlongs and 7 1/2 furlongs. Located within a six-hour drive of 10 race tracks, TTC is home to 831 horses, many of whom reside there year-round.

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Gutierrez: Letruska Poised For Big Effort In Distaff, Thanks To Lessons Learned In 2020

Trainer Fausto Gutierrez is having his most successful year in the United States, and it's mostly thanks to stable star Letruska, who this week will carry the trainer to his first Breeders' Cup as she takes aim at the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Distaff.

Gutierrez revealed at a press conference Nov. 1 that he had first dreamt of a trip to the Breeders' Cup with the filly in 2020, when she picked up a win in the Added Elegance Stakes at Gulfstream in June. After she put in a disappointing effort in her Grade 1 debut in the Ballerina however, he had to change course.

Gutierrez has dominated Thoroughbred racing in Mexico alongside top owner St. George Stable, which owns Letruska. He'd made a brief foray into American racing in the 1990s, when Hipodoromo de las Americas was closed and he had no choice but to bring some of his horses to Texas. He also sent runners to the Clasico Del Caribe, which came to Gulfstream Park in 2017 (readers may remember his runners Kukulkan and Jala Jala in that race series). Last year, St. George's German Larrea decided to experiment with a small American string, which Gutiererz bases at Palm Meadows. While Gutierrez has more than 100 horses in Mexico, he told Thoroughbred Daily News in 2020 the American contingent would be much smaller, around 15 horses.

This year, he has saddled 60 starters in the States with 16 winners and earnings of over $2.2 million, thanks largely to Letruska.

Now five years old, the daughter of Super Saver and Successful Appeal mare Magic Appeal is nearly perfect in her 2021 season, picking up wins in the G1 Spinster, Personal Ensign, Ogden Phipps and Apple Blossom. She's missed having an undefeated year by just a head in a tough beat in the Grade 2 Azeri to Shedaresthedevil.

“When I decided her campaign, I selected the races depending on how she's doing, how she trains,” he said. “Every day it's like she tells me, tomorrow we can go to stronger competition.”

Gutierrez said Monday that in hindsight, he made a few mistakes in plotting her 2020 campaign. Looking back, he said he entered her in at least one Oaklawn race he could have skipped, feeling pressure to get a start in while he could as the COVID-19 pandemic threw transportation plans and condition books into the air. He said he also broke with his usual racing schedule for her, sending her to the G3 Shuvee at Saratoga after her disappointing run in the Ballerina because he didn't want to leave the track totally empty-handed; now he wonders if the races coming three weeks apart were too much.

But good things came out of that learning year, too – Gutierrez said he realized in her G2 Beldame loss that she did not need blinkers. He thought the filly seemed distracted and worried by Horologist, and actually needed to see her competitors better. Since removing them, she has won all but one race.

So far, Gutierrez said he is happy with the way Letruska has made the trip. She had a 15-hour journey but came off the van at Del Mar her usual self.

“After I saw last Saturday how she came out of the van and the attitude she had, the next day I felt very comfortable,” he said. “I saw this horse is ready for this competition. She is a horse with a very special mind. She is ready for this.”

Although he's expecting big things from the mare, Gutierrez also acknowledged that just to make it to the Breeders' Cup is a tremendous accomplishment.

“This is a real dream, because nobody can think this could happen,” he said. “When I had this horse in Mexico City I understood she's a special horse, a horse who could run fast. But to be here, it's like another planet.

“I try to do the best work. I don't have a lot of horses with this quality. I just have one. Sometimes I feel like Rambo – I have to go with all the other ones, horses who have seven or eight horses [like this.]”

The post Gutierrez: Letruska Poised For Big Effort In Distaff, Thanks To Lessons Learned In 2020 appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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‘Older, Wiser And Hopefully A Little Better’: Desormeaux, Hess Back Together For Breeders’ Cup

In 1991, Robert B. Hess, Jr., won the first of back-to-back Del Mar training titles. In 1992, Hess' championship cohort was jockey Kent Desormeaux, who would score his first of back-to-back riding titles and rack up 135 wins in the two-year span.

A lot has happened in the 30 years since.

Desormeaux, 51, has notched victories in three Kentucky Derbies, three Preakness and a Belmont Stakes. He has six Breeders' Cup wins, three Eclipse Awards and has held membership in racing's Hall of Fame since 2004. With two wins Sunday at Santa Anita, Equibase statistics show him with 6,101 career victories from 32,413 mounts in a 35-year career.

Hess, 56, has gone nationwide with strings in Kentucky and Florida. But the native of Chula Vista has remained headquartered in Southern California and unabashedly citing Del Mar as holding a special place in his heart.

“Del Mar is my paradise,” Hess said Sunday. It is, after all, the place that provided him with his first winner (Palapiano, July 31, 1987), first training title in 1991 and first graded stakes winner (River Special, 1992 Del Mar Futurity).

And as they have over the years, Desormeaux and Hess are hoping to make headlines again when they team up with Cairo Memories in the Juvenile Fillies Turf and Chaos Theory in the Turf Sprint during Breeders' Cup weekend.

“I've got gray hair and he's got a couple of wrinkles, but hopefully we're older, wiser and hopefully a little better,” Hess said. “But we have the A-team back together and we're looking forward to it.”

Cairo Memories, a daughter of Cairo Prince, was pre-entered in the Juvenile Fillies and Juvenile Fillies Turf and will go in the $1 million, one mile grass event. She is 2-for-2 in a career begun at Del Mar on Sept. 5 and comes in off a win in the Surfer Girl Stakes at Santa Anita on Oct. 3.

“Cairo is splendid, a wonderful, gifted filly and just a pleasure to be around,” Hess said. “Unless the jock screws it up (with a wink toward Desormeaux), I think we'll get the money.”

Chaos Theory, like Cairo Memories owned by David Bernsen and partners, is a 6-year-old gelded son of Curlin. He has six wins in 18 starts with earnings of $359,454. Chaos Theory is 0-for-5 in 2021 but won both his career starts at Del Mar – the Green Flash in August and an optional claimer in November of 2020. Desormeaux was aboard for the first time in a third-place finish in the Eddie D Stakes at Santa Anita on Oct. 1.

Chaos Theory is one of 19 pre-entered in the $1 million, five-furlong event.

“Chaos, if he gets in, will run fantastic,” Hess said. “I've tweaked a few things, Kent knows him even better and it will be at his favorite distance on his favorite turf course.”

Desormeaux has one other Breeders' Cup mount lined up, Oviatt Class in the $2 million TVG Breeders' Cup Juvenile for his trainer/brother Keith.

The post ‘Older, Wiser And Hopefully A Little Better’: Desormeaux, Hess Back Together For Breeders’ Cup appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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