Month: January 2023

Arabian Knight As Advertised in Southwest

'TDN Rising Star' Arabian Knight (Uncle Mo), a devastating debut winner for Hall of Famer Bob Baffert going seven furlongs on Breeders' Cup Saturday at Keeneland, successfully stretched to two turns with a stylish 5 1/2-length victory as the 2-5 chalk in a sloppy renewal of the GIII Southwest S. at Oaklawn Park.

The $2.3-million OBSAPR topper broke like a shot from post six and led the field around the clubhouse turn. He splashed his way up top through fractions of :22.98 and :46.82, kicked for home as the one to catch, and, after briefly drifting out slightly down the lane, drew off impressively once straightened with a single right-handed strike from Johnny Velazquez to report home as a much-the-best winner.

For the second straight year, Churchill Downs has banished trainer Baffert related to his under-appeal equine drug DQ from the 2021 Derby, and his trainees are prohibited from earning qualifying points. The Southwest carried 40 total points towards eligibility.

Runner-up Red Route One (Gun Runner), however, earned eight points and Frosted Departure (Frosted) received six points while finishing third.

“When he got away and got in that high cruising [speed] down the backside I thought, 'Well, if he's as good as I think he is, there's no excuse,'” Baffert said. “If he got beat today, the distance was going to get him. These good horses are hard to come by. We've had a lot of luck here at Oaklawn, so it was nice to have a horse like this. What he did today, he ran 1:43 and change, that's racehorse time and he did it without taking a deep breath. This was a big effort, so he needs time in between [races]. We'll play it by ear [regarding his next start].”

Velazquez added, “He made it look easy. He broke well and I took advantage of it. At the quarter pole, I went after him, and he opened up and he saw the tire track [from starting gate]. I said, 'Come on buddy, don't do something stupid.' I hit him once, right before we got to the tire track. He kind of hesitated and then he sees the light and I hit him one more time and all of a sudden, he takes off on me. Going to the wire I was like, 'OK, that's what I wanted to see.'”

Arabian Knight received top billing on TDN Top 12 earlier this month.

Pedigree Notes:

A 91st stakes winner and 47th graded winner for the outstanding Uncle Mo, Arabian Knight is out of Borealis Night, herself a $450,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling, who was fourth in a lone racetrack appearance for owner/trainer Ralph Nicks in late 2018 and was scooped up by Nathan McCauley's River Oak Farm for just $50,000 at the Fasig-Tipton February a few months later.

The mare had some pedigree underneath her as a half-sister to the three-times graded-placed Kinsley Kisses (Congrats) and GSP Spooky Woods (Ghostzapper) and that helped earn her a date in the breeding shed with Uncle Mo. Consigned to the 2019 Keeneland November Sale, Borealis Night was hammered down to Corser Thoroughbreds for $285,000 and the operation recovered a fair bit of that outlay when Scott and Evan Dilworth paid $250,000 for the colt at Keeneland September in 2021. Prepared by Top Line Sales, agent, for last year's OBS April Sale, the bay breezed an eighth of a mile in :9 4/5 and went on to top the event on a bid of $2.3 million from Gary Young, agent for Zedan Racing Stable. The latter also purchased Princess Noor (Not This Time) off Top Line for a sales-topping $1.35 million at OBSAPR in 2020.

The first daughter of Astrology to be represented by a stakes winner, Borealis Night is the dam of a yearling colt by Quality Road and is due to Curlin for this season.

Saturday, Oaklawn Park
SOUTHWEST S.-GIII, $750,000, Oaklawn, 1-28, 3yo, 1 1/16m,
1:43.50, sy.
1–ARABIAN KNIGHT, 117, c, 3, by Uncle Mo
          1st Dam: Borealis Night, by Astrology
          2nd Dam: Winter Forest, by Forestry
          3rd Dam: Shivering Six, by Saratoga Six
1ST BLACK TYPE WIN, 1ST GRADED STAKES WIN. 'TDN Rising
Star' ($250,000 Ylg '21 KEESEP; $2,300,000 2yo '22 OBSAPR).
O-Zedan Racing Stables, Inc.; B-Corser Thoroughbreds LLC (KY);
T-Bob Baffert; J-John R. Velazquez. $458,250. Lifetime Record:
2-2-0-0, $544,275. Werk Nick Rating: A+++. *Triple Plus* Click
for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. Click for the
free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Red Route One, 117, c, 3, Gun Runner–Red House, by Tapit.
O/B-Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC (KY); T-Steven M. Asmussen.
$141,000.
3–Frosted Departure, 117, c, 3, Frosted–Undeterred, by More
Than Ready. 1ST GRADED BLACK TYPE. ($50,000 Wlg '20
KEENOV; $100,000 Ylg '21 KEESEP). O-C&H Diamond Racing
LLC & Magdalena Racing (Sherri McPeek); B-Alastar
Thoroughbred Company, LLC (KY); T-Kenneth G. McPeek.
$70,500.
Margins: 5HF, 2, 1 3/4. Odds: 0.40, 15.50, 46.10.
Also Ran: Sun Thunder, Jace's Road, Corona Bolt, El Tomate,
Western Ghent. Scratched: Hit Show.
Click for the Equibase.com chart and the TJCIS.com PPs. VIDEO,
sponsored by TVG.

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Art Collector Runs Away With $3-Million Pegasus World Cup

Bruce Lunsford's Bernardini homebred Art Collector registered the richest win of his 21-race career on Saturday, coming from just off the pace to score an emphatic 4 1/2-length triumph over Defunded in the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational presented by Baccarat at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.

Trained by Bill Mott and ridden for the first time by Junior Alvarado, Art Collector ran the nine furlongs on a fast main track in 1:49.44 and paid $33 to win.

The mount on Art Collector became open for the Grade 1 race, Mott said, when the horse's regular rider, Luis Saez, opted to ride another longshot in the race, Get Her Number, for Peter Miller.

Defunded, the 5-2 second betting choice behind favored Cyberknife, finished second, with front-running 45-1 outsider Stilleto Boy third for the second year in a row. Last Samurai was fourth and Proxy fifth in the field of 12 older runners. They were followed by Cyberknife, the two-time G1 winner making his final start before entering stud at Spendthrift Farm, Skippylongstocking, White Abarrio, Get Her Number, Simplification, O'Connor, and Ridin With Biden.

Mike Smith gunned Stilleto Boy to the lead from the No.  11 post position in the short run to the first turn and set fractions of :23.61, :47.71 and 1:11.82 for the first six furlongs. Defunded, ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr., was the front-runner's closest pursuer, with White Abarrio just behind him and Art Collector following Defunded while four wide down the backstretch.

As the field rounded the turn, Defunded challenged Stilleto Boy and then Art Collector ranged up to their outside as the three turned their heads toward the finish. Art Collector moved to the front at the top of the stretch, clicking off a mile in 1:36.65, then cruised to the wire without being further challenged.

“We scripted it that way and it turned out that way,” said Mott of Alvarado's ride. “That doesn't happen but Junior rode him and did a great job. I told him just ride him like you ride Olympiad (a multiple graded stakes winner for Mott in 2022), and he rode him the same way.”

“I don't have the words to put it together. It's just unbelievable,” said Alvarado, who recently registered his 2,000th career victory. The Pegasus was his 18th Grade 1 triumph in North America. “I'm so glad that I got a chance to ride this horse. He's a very neat horse that I've been following for quite a while. I guess it was the perfect time and we got it done today.

“I don't know how it gets any better than this,” Alvarado continued. “It's unbelievable having this win with Mott. … I'm very grateful for the big support he's given me over the years. I'm just very happy right now.”

It was announced last year that Art Collector, who is now 6, would stand at Claiborne Farm at the conclusion of his career, but Lunsford and Mott indicated the multiple graded stakes winner would likely continue to race in 2023.

“Bill and I have had a long-term relationship, back with Vision and Verse (graded stakes winner who was second in the 1999 G1 Belmont Stakes),” said Lunsford. “We talked about it, and I give Bill credit for this, he said we're going to try something different. Let's lay him off. And he just kept getting better and better.”

Art Collector had not raced since finishing fifth behind Hot Rod Charlie in the G2 Lukas Classic at Churchill Downs Oct. 1. Mott had considered a prep for the Pegasus but felt he wasn't quite ready. He was ready when it mattered most.

The Pegasus World Cup was Art Collector's second Grade 1 victory, following the 2021 Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park. He won the G2 Blue Grass Stakes at 3 in 2020, along with back to back victories in the G2 Charles Town Classic in 2021 and '22.

Art Collector's record now stands at 11 wins and one second from 21 starts.

Post-race quotes:

Trainers

Ed Moger Jr. (Stilleto Boy, 3rd): “It was our plan just to come out running from the [11] post. He usually breaks really, really well so we wanted to be right where we were.”

Sebastian 'Bas' Nicholl, assistant to D. Wayne Lukas (Last Samurai, 4th): “It was a great trip. A great ride. A great effort from the horse and the jockey.”

Brad Cox (Cyberknife, 6th): “He didn't look like he fired to me. He had a little bit of a wide trip and at the three-eighths pole I could kind of tell he wasn't traveling. He broke well but they got away from him. It reminded me a little bit of the race at Parx when he ran third there. It wasn't to be. It didn't work out.”

Saffie Joseph Jr. (Skippylongstocking, 7th; White Abarrio, 8th; O'Connor, 11th): “I don't think any of them ran to the way we expected. But that's racing. You regroup, and they came back safe and sound. But none of them fired. That's racing, sometimes.”

“White Abarrio, he got a good trip. He was on the inside, so he was taking a lot of dirt. But as far as he was drawn, it was a good enough trip that you really can't complain about it. I thought White Abarrio was in good shape to run well.”

“Skippy was in a good spot, too, but he just flattened out.”

“O'Connor, he didn't show anything. He was probably the only one that didn't show anything.”

Jockeys

Irad Ortiz Jr. (Defunded, 2nd): “I had a beautiful trip. We wanted to have a clear break and we had it. He broke a step slow the last couple times so that was my goal to make him break. He put me in a perfect spot. I sat second and I just got beat. Second-best today.”

Joel Rosario (Proxy, 5th): “I had a really good trip. He had a lot of kickback and he wasn't too happy with that. He put his head up in the air a little bit. He came running late but sometimes that can cost you the race. He still ran good after all that.”

Florent Geroux (Cyberknife, 6th): “I was right behind the speed the way I anticipated. I was right behind Skippylongstocking and I could tell already at the half-mile pole when [Cyberknife] was not taking me I knew he was pretty much done. He's a horse that usually travels great and likes to do it on his own.”

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Art Collector Draws The Upset In Pegasus World Cup

Bruce Lunsford homebred Art Collector (Bernardini) sat the trip beneath Junior Alvarado and sprung a 15-1 upset in Saturday's $3-million GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational S. at Gulfstream.

California invader Defunded (Dialed In), winner of last fall's GI Awesome Again S. and off as the 5-2 second choice, was 4 1/2 lengths back in second. Pacesetter Stilleto Boy (Shackleford) stayed on for third, the same position he filled in last year's renewal.

Alvarado, who rode the Bill Mott-trained Olympiad (Speightstown) to four graded-stakes victories and a runner-up finish behind Flightline (Tapit) in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic last year, was riding Art Collector for the first time in the Pegasus.

“We scripted it that way and it turned out that way,” Mott said. “That doesn't happen very often, but [jockey] Junior [Alvarado] rode him and did a great job. I told him just ride him like you ride Olympiad, and he rode him the same way.”

Mott continued, “He's done that before. These kinds of races, you just have to wait and see. These are competitive races. You get the horse as good as you can and hope the horse shows up.”

Art Collector raced in fourth around the clubhouse turn as Stilleto Boy narrowly led Defunded through an opening quarter in :23.61. Cruising along nicely in an outside third, Art Collector set his sights on the top two while three wide on the far turn, struck the front less than a quarter of a mile from home and put the race to bed from there to win going away.

Art Collector, winner of the 2021 GI Woodward S. at Belmont, followed a sixth-place finish in that term's GI Breeders' Cup Classic with a 12th-place finish in the G1 Saudi Cup. He got back on track with a wire-to-wire win in Saratoga's Alydar S. Aug. 4 and successfully defended his title in the GII Charles Town Classic S. Aug. 26. The bay concluded his 5-year-old campaign with a fifth-place finish in the GII Lukas Classic Oct. 1.

“Originally, we were thinking of going to the Cigar Mile with him, and October, end of October, he had a foot abscess,” Mott said. “So we had to scrap all our plans. I told Bruce, I said, well, we're going to miss that. Let's go to Florida.”

“[Trainer] Bill [Mott] and I have had a long-term relationship, back with Vision and Verse,” Lunsford said. “We talked about it, and I give Bill credit for this, he said we're going to try something different. Let's lay him off. And he just kept getting better and better.”

Favored MGISW Cyberknife (Gun Runner), a painful second in the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile at Keeneland in November, failed to duplicate his sire's heroics from the same wide draw in post 10 and was a disappointing sixth. Cyberknife is scheduled to begin his career at stud for a fee of $30,000 this upcoming breeding season at Spendthrift Farm.

“He didn't look like he fired to me,” trainer Brad Cox said. “He had a little bit of a wide trip and at the three-eighths pole I could kind of tell he wasn't traveling. He broke well but they got away from him. It reminded me a little bit of the race at Parx when he ran third there. It wasn't to be. It didn't work out.”

Pedigree Notes:

Art Collector's second dam Bunting was bred by and began her career racing for Mrs. John Hay Whitney's Greentree Stables, finishing runner-up to Inside Information (Private Account) in the 1994 GI Ashland S. and the GI Black-Eyed Susan S. before she was purchased by Seth Hancock, on behalf of Bruce Lunsford and Lanny Holbrook, for $500,000 at that year's Keeneland November Sale. She was victorious in one of three subsequent appearances for Bill Mott before being retired and covered by Storm Cat.

Bunting was an immediate hit at stud, as her first foal became Vision and Verse, winner of the 1999 GII Illinois Derby and second to Lemon Drop Kid (Kingmambo) in the GI Belmont S. and GI Travers S. Bunting's next foal of import was her filly of 2003, Performing Diva (Storm Cat), second in the 2005 GII Darley Alcibiades S., and four years later, Bunting produced a filly by Distorted Humor. The versatile Distorted Legacy won the Sky Beauty S. on the dirt and was second in the GI Flower Bowl Invitational S. on the grass ahead of a close fourth in that year's GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf.

Distorted Legacy is the dam of three winners from four to race, including the Bill Mott-trained Classic Legacy (Into Mischief), a juvenile maiden winner at Aqueduct Dec. 3 with Junior Alvarado at the controls. She is also responsible for the 2-year-old filly Kingdom Come (Justify), a yearling filly by Medaglia d'Oro and was most recently covered by Gun Runner.

Art Collector, one of 16 worldwide Grade I/Group 1 winners for his late sire, is set to enter stud at Claiborne Farm upon the conclusion of his racing career.

Saturday, Gulfstream Park
PEGASUS WORLD CUP INVITATIONAL S. PRESENTED BY
BACCARAT-GI, $2,944,000, Gulfstream, 1-28, 4yo/up, 1 1/8m,
1:49.44, ft.
1–ART COLLECTOR, 123, h, 6, by Bernardini
                1st Dam: Distorted Legacy (SW & GISP, $421,466), by
                                Distorted Humor
                2nd Dam: Bunting, by Private Account
                3rd Dam: Flag Waver, by Hoist the Flag
O/B-Bruce Lunsford (KY); T-William I. Mott;
J-Junior Alvarado. $1,680,000. Lifetime Record: 21-11-1-0,
$4,012,490. Werk Nick Rating: A+++ ***Triple Plus***
   Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree or free
   Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Defunded, 123, g, 5, Dialed In–Wind Caper, by Touch Gold.
($210,000 Ylg '19 KEESEP). O-Michael E. Pegram, Karl Watson
& Paul Weitman; B-Athens Woods LLC (KY); T-Bob Baffert.
$560,000.
3–Stilleto Boy, 123, g, 5, Shackleford–Rosie's Ransom, by
Marquetry. ($420,000 3yo '21 FTKHRA). O-Steve Moger;
B-John & Iveta Kerber (KY); T-Ed Moger, Jr. $280,000.
Margins: 4HF, 1 1/4, 1 1/4. Odds: 15.50, 2.90, 45.50.
Also Ran: Last Samurai, Proxy, Cyberknife, Skippylongstocking,
White Abarrio, Get Her Number, Simplification, O'Connor (Chi),
Ridin With Biden. Scratched: Endorsed, Hoist the Gold.
Click for the Equibase.com chart or the TJCIS.com PPs. VIDEO,
sponsored by TVG.

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