Month: August 2022

Regal Glory Ready to Take On Males in Fourstardave

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — Peter Brant's Regal Glory (Animal Kingdom) arrives at GI Fourstardave H. Saturday with no shortage of angles to her story.

The two-time Grade I winner is unbeaten in three starts this year and is likely to go off as the favorite in the field of five signed up for the one-mile turf event. This will be her first try against males in a distinguished career with trainer Chad Brown that has produced 12 victories from 19 starts and earnings of $2,111,009.

Regal Glory has been with Brown throughout her five seasons on the track, but in an unusual twist, she has been owned by two of his clients, her breeder Paul Pompa and Brant. Three months after Pompa died at the age of 62 in October 2020, Brant purchased Regal Glory in the disbursement sale for $925,000. Since he acquired her, Regal Glory has won six of eight races and earned over $1.3 million.

“The reason that I bought her was because I ran against her a number of times and she always beat me,” Brant said. “I had a lot of respect for her. And I bought her because I thought Paul was a really great guy and a lucky guy. I just said to myself, 'I'm buying something from him.'”

Brant said that Brown recommended that he consider Regal Glory going into the sale, but felt he had paid too much for a 4-year-old filly without a Grade I win on her resume.

“He didn't think at that time that she would win,” Brant said. “It's really not a question that some horses make fools of you. They do what they do. Some of them, if you give them a little bit more time, they excel. She was good from the very beginning and she just got really good at six.”

Brown smiled and shook his head at the suggestion that he encouraged Brant to go after the filly at the sale.

“He always thought she was a great racehorse who had even further potential to develop as years went on,” Brown said. “I wasn't so sure. I knew she was talented, but he loved her pedigree and he loved everything about her. Mr. Brant is really an outstanding horseman. He knows horses physically. He knows the form of horses in races very well and he was adamant about trying to buy this horse and keep her going racing. He was right.”

Regal Glory had a solid 2021 season, but came up a half-length behind Brant's Brown-trained Blowout (Dansili (GB)) in the GI First Lady S. at Keeneland Oct. 9. Sent to Del Mar for the Bing Crosby meet, she led from gate to wire in the GI Matriarch S.

“She's just one of those fillies that improved a tremendous amount at five and six,” Brant said. “Some fillies at six they don't want to run anymore. They're a little tired, they've had a lot of battles, and they've just run out of steam, but she seems to be at her best.”

With the Grade I in the bank, Brant was planning to have her change careers and join his broodmare band. Before sending her to Kentucky, Brant and Brown decided to enter her in the inaugural running of the $500,000 GIII Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf. She came from well off the pace in her first start beyond a mile in two years to take the 1 1/16-mile race by 2 1/2 lengths.

“I was going to retire her at the end of the 5-year-old year, and then she ran that race down at Gulfstream and she blew everybody out,” Brant said. “I was talking that day to Walker Hancock, because I keep my most of my mares at Claiborne Farm, and he looked at me and said, 'I guess she's not coming back to the farm.'”

Regal Glory's retirement was put on hold and she stayed in training. She won the GI Jenny Wiley S. at Keeneland in April and rolled to a decisive 3 1/2-length victory in the GI Just A Game S. at Belmont Park in June.

“Oh, yeah, she's really exceeded my expectations, Brant said. “I thought maybe I'd win a Grade I with her.”

Now she is a multiple Grade I winner for Brant and is taking on males in the Fourstardave. She would be the second female to win the race, following Got Stormy (Get Stormy), who was first at the wire in 2019 and again last year.

“I've been pointing for this race for a while,” Brown said. “I like keeping her to a mile distance. I like the spacing from her last race, the Just A Game. It appears right now that she is the leader of the division and I think giving her new challenges to face at this stage of her career, now that she is six, seems like the appropriate thing to do. A try against the boys in a very prestigious race. I just think she deserves the opportunity.”

Despite his dominance at Saratoga, where he has won four of the last six meet titles–and leads again this season–powered by his elite stable of grass runners, Brown, 43, has yet to win the Fourstardave. It hasn't been for lack of trying: he has four seconds and one third from 13 starts. With Regal Glory and Juddmonte's Masen (GB) (Kingman (GB)), Brown will have multiple entries for the fourth-straight year.

Brown said there are a number of elements to consider before sending a female in against males: “Scheduling. Distance of race. What kind of form she is in. Trying to manage a campaign to potentially win an Eclipse Award. All those things. Factor in what weight she is going to carry. It's all a careful decision in what we want to do and I think the time is right.”
Brown said Regal Glory is doing great.

“She has never looked better or trained better,” he said.

The Fourstardave is the first step in a plan to carry Regal Glory to the GI Breeders' Cup Mile at Keeneland to face what is usually a mostly male field on Nov. 5. A victory in the Fourstardave would give her a guaranteed berth in the Mile through the Breeders' Cup's “Win and You're In” program. Brown said he would consider the GI Woodbine Mile S. but said the First Lady at Keeneland was a more likely spot after the Fourstardave before the Breeders' Cup.

Since the Fourstardave is a handicap, Regal Glory will carry 119 pounds, four less than stablemate Masen, the top weight. Brant figures she should be getting more of a break because of her gender, but the racing office had to take her success into account when making the assignments.

“She's really carrying top weight running against the boys,” Brant said. “I'm not so keen about it, but that's where Chad wants to run her and I think I'll be watching very anxiously.”

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Georgia Legislator Renews Effort to Legalize Horse Racing in State

The push to legalize horse racing in Georgia goes back years, but the sport's proponents have never been able to get it across the finish line. Now, a recently elected State Senator who is an owner and breeder hopes to change that. Billy Hickman, a Republican from Statesboro, Georgia, is determined to see the sport come to his state and is confident his efforts will succeed.

“I believe we will get this done,” Hickman said. “We are doing a good job trying to educate people. We have three Republican Senators who own interests in race horses and another Senator owns an interest in a pinhooking partnership. They are all leaders. They are not underlings. We're working hard to make this happen.”

In March, the move to legalize the sport suffered another setback. Hickman and others were behind a Senate Resolution that, if passed, would have allowed the state's voters to decide on horse racing's future. It was expected that the voters would approve legalizing the sport but they never got the chance. The Senate voted 33-20 in favor of Senate Resolution 131, but that wasn't enough to meet the two-thirds requirement for a constitutional amendment to move forward to the House. Hickman's side needed five more votes. Religious and anti-gambling forces were able to stop the resolution. Ironically, a bill to legalize sports betting passed in the Georgia Senate by a 41-10 margin.

“We've all met people who could not handle gambling,” Senator Marty Harbin told Georgia Recorder after the resolution was shot down. “It's a health problem, because among those who are addicted to gambling, there's a high suicide rate as well that goes along with that.”

When Hickman, a certified public accountant who entered the State Senate in 2020, took office he was an obvious choice to lead the push to legalize racing in Georgia. He's been around horses since competing in barrel races as a child and owns nine horses in various partnerships, plus two yearlings and two broodmares. He also pinhooks four or five horses a year.

“I love this stuff,” he said. “Racing is my passion. I'm not just somebody sitting on the sidelines saying this is something we have to do. They were always trying to get someone in the Senate or in the General Assembly who understood racing and was willing to push for it. Now they have someone in the Senate who understands the sport and the benefits it would bring to the state.”

Those benefits include 8,500 jobs and the creation of a $1.28-billion industry, the numbers Georgia Southern University came up with after being brought in by Hickman to conduct an economic impact study.

“As much as I love racing, if it doesn't make economic sense for Georgia I don't want to do it,” Hickman said. “We did the economic impact study to make sure this would be good for Georgia. I need for it to make business sense. The 8,500 jobs, that's more jobs than Lockheed Martin, more jobs than Chick-fil-A, more jobs that Synovus Bank. So, it's a big, big deal.”

But for those for numbers to pan out, racing in Georgia would have to be a success. The easiest way to make that happen would be to allow the tracks to open casinos. Hickman said that's not going to happen because he knows that would doom the effort to bring the sport into the state. He also said there are also no current plans to push for Historical Horse Racing Machines.

“Around here, 'casino' is a bad word,” he said.

But he acknowledges that racing would need an alternative revenue source to make it. What that might be? He's not sure.

“We would need something else to provide money for the purses and we are working on that,” he said.

Another issue is who would put up the money to build a racetrack if doing so didn't include opening a casino or, at the very least, having the HHR machines? Hickman said there are companies willing to invest in Georgia racing.

The Georgia Southern study explored having three tracks in the state, the largest of which would be in the Atlanta area. Another track could be built in the Savannah area.

“Georgia's biggest industry is agriculture,” Hickman said. “This would be a huge boost for our agriculture industry. It will take a while to build up the industry, but I see us having the type of purses where a maiden race would go for $65,000. We have 11 million people in Georgia and 5 million in the Atlanta area. Kentucky only has 4.5 million people.”

Hickman is in the process of collecting names of those in Georgia who take part in the Thoroughbred business and/or want to see the sport come to the state and is encouraging those people to reach out to him at Billy.Hickman@senate.ga.gov.

“We are in the process of developing a data base of supporters as a defacto petition to show the Georgia Legislature the ground swell of support behind this initiative,” he said.

His supporters include prominent owners and Georgia residents Dean and Patti Reeves, who have been at the forefront of the effort to bring racing to the state. Dean Reeves is a board members of the Georgia Horse Racing Coalition, an advocacy group trying to bring horse racing to Georgia.

As involved as Hickman is in the sport, he isn't contributing to the Georgia economy. His horses are bred in and foaled in either Kentucky or Florida. He sells his horses in Ocala and in Lexington and races up and down the map, but not in his home state.

“I purchased my first Thoroughbred at the Ocala Breeders' Sales,” he said. “Since then, my wife and I have bred, trained, raced and pinhooked many Thoroughbreds. Unfortunately, those dollars are being spent in neighboring states that have legalized pari-mutuel betting on horse racing.”

That's something he'd like to change. Hickman will reintroduce a resolution to legalize the sport when the State Senate reconvenes early next year. In the meantime, there will be some campaigning and some arm twisting.

“I am confident we will see there be horse racing in this state.” he said. “And that will be good for horse racing and good for Georgia.

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Observations: Half to Palace Pier Introduced at Newmarket

6.15 Newmarket, Mdn, £8,000, 2yo, 8fT
CASTLE WAY (GB) (Almanzor {Fr}) makes his debut for Godolphin and Charlie Appleby and is a 425,000gns Book 1 graduate and half-brother to the high-class multiple group 1-winning Palace Pier (GB) (Kingman {GB}). The stable's Lenormand (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) is the mount of William Buick, but the 600,000gns Tattersalls December Foals graduate has to progress from his initial outing when sixth at Newbury last month.

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