January, 2023 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Clement Stablemates City Man, Decorated Invader, 1-2 In Fort Lauderdale, Could Face Off In Pegasus Turf

Christophe Clement-trained stablemates City Man and Decorated Invader will be pointed to the $1-million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational (G1) Jan. 28 at Gulfstream Park following their respective 1-2 finish in Saturday's Fort Lauderdale (G2).

Reeves Thoroughbred Racing and Peter and Patty Searles' City Man got a patient ride from jockey Joel Rosario to find room inside late and surge to a 1 ½-length victory, while West Point Thoroughbreds, William Freeman, William Sandbrook, and Cheryl Manning's Decorated Invader emerged from a three-way photo to get second by a neck.

The Fort Lauderdale serves as Gulfstream's local prep for the Pegasus Turf for 4-year-olds and up. Both races are contested at 1 1/8 miles.

“The two horses came back in good shape and looked good to me this morning,” Clement said Sunday. “We'll speak to the owners, but the idea would be to train them for the Pegasus.”

Now 6, City Man's win was his eighth career stakes win and third in a row following back-to-back stakes victories over fellow New York-breds at Aqueduct. He earned his first graded triumph last summer in the Forbidden Apple (G3) at Saratoga.

“He had some very good races [last] year and we just hope we can keep his form for one more race,” Clement said. “The idea is to run in the Pegasus then we'll pull the plug, send him to Ocala, and give him a break afterward.”

Co-owner Dean Reeves was excited about City Man's performance, both as a prelude to the Pegasus and as a tribute to his sire, Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) winner Mucho Macho Man, who Reeves also campaigned.

“We were thrilled. It's just such a satisfying win and I'm just so proud of City Man and of course his stallion,” he said. “It's a double win for me.”

Reeves praised both Rosario – aboard for 17 of City Man's 26 starts including seven of his nine wins – and Team Clement for their contributions to City Man's success.

“They do such a great job. They'll have him ready for the Pegasus. There was always [talk about] the race in Dubai, but I think we'll just stay right here. They've got the track in great shape The turf course, they've done a nice job with that. Right now we'll just come on back and run in the Pegasus,” Reeves said. “Joel is just a consummate professional. His ability, he just moves your horse up. You've just got a heck of a shot when he's on your horse.”

Decorated Invader had to overcome drawing the outermost post in a full field of 12 but was put into contention right away by jockey Tyler Gaffalione pressing 34-1 long shot pacesetter Winfromwithin and still there at the end.

It was the fourth race this year for the 6-year-old Decorated Invader since coming back Sept. 24 at Pimlico after 16 months between starts. He won the 2019 Summer (G1) at Woodbine as a juvenile in his stakes debut and won three more stakes in 2020 – the Cutler Bay at Gulfstream, Pennine Ridge (G2) at Belmont Park and National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame (G2) at Saratoga.

“I thought he ran very well because he had the terrible post. It was very encouraging. Let's not forget he was a very nice 2-year-old. It took me a while to get his form back but I loved the race yesterday,” Clement said. “As long as both horses are doing well and training well, hopefully we'll be able to run them in the Pegasus.”

The Fort Lauderdale was just the third time Decorated Invader had gone as far as 1 1/8 miles, also the distance of his Hall of Fame victory.

“Everybody is just thrilled. It was a tough post, but we just couldn't be happier with the ride Tyler gave him and the fight he showed down the lane, because they went pretty quick,” said West Point Executive Vice President Tom Bellhouse. “It was really the dynamic of being forwardly placed and his tactical speed. It's an element I think he's always had but he always had such a powerful kick that he just kind of did his own thing before.

“I think everybody was thrilled with the way he ran and I think that dynamic will keep him competitive in a lot of big races,” he added. “We always thought all along that if we could compete at a high level in the Fort Lauderdale that the Pegasus would be on the horizon.”

Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher said following the Fort Lauderdale that he would train sixth-place finisher Colonel Liam with the Pegasus Turf in mind. Colonel Liam won the Pegasus Turf in 2021 and 2022, and the race Saturday was his first since running ninth in the Dubai Turf last March.

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Gulfstream Stakes Winners to Target Pegasus World Cup

Skippylongstocking (Exaggerator) will be aimed at the Jan. 28 GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational after his victory in the GIII Harlan's Holiday S. Saturday at Gulfstream, while the Christophe Clement-trained stablemates City Man (Mucho Macho Man) and Decorated Invader (Declaration of War), first and second in the GII Fort Lauderdale S., will now target the Jan. 28 GI Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational.

Skippylongstocking won the 2022 GIII West Virginia Derby and was third in the GI Belmont S.

“He's getting better and he's filled out so much,” trainer Saffie Joseph said. “He exceeds all expectations. I never give him that much credit and he keeps delivering.”

Joseph said Skippylongstocking will be joined in the Pegasus by stablemate O'Connor (Chi) (Boboman), who finished fourth as the favorite in the Harlan's Holiday.

“He wears glue-on shoes and they actually separated where one shoe was half on and half off,” Joseph said of the Chilean Group 1 winner's trip in the Harlan's Holiday. “I think that could have been a hinderance. I'd rather lose a shoe than have one half on and half off.”

Also expected to move on to the Pegasus are Harlan's Holiday runner-up Pioneer of Medina (Pioneerof the Nile) and third-place finisher Simplification (Not This Time).

The Christophe Clement-trained stablemates City Man (Mucho Macho Man) and Decorated Invader (Declaration of War), first and second in the GII Fort Lauderdale S. at Gulfstream Park Saturday, will now be aimed at the Jan. 28 GI Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational.

Reeves Thoroughbred Racing and Peter and Patty Searles's City Man got a patient ride from jockey Joel Rosario to find room inside late and surged to a 1 1/2-length victory, while West Point Thoroughbreds, William Freeman, William Sandbrook and Cheryl Manning's Decorated Invader emerged from a three-way photo to get second by a neck.

“The two horses came back in good shape and looked good to me this morning,” Clement said Sunday. “We'll speak to the owners, but the idea would be to train them for the Pegasus.”

The 6-year-old City Man won the GIII Forbidden Apple S. at Saratoga last July and was second in the GIII Bernard Baruch H. before winning a pair of New York-bred stakes in the fall.

Co-owner Dean Reeves, who also campaigned City Man's GI Breeders' Cup Classic-winning sire, was excited about City Man's performance.

“We were thrilled. It's just such a satisfying win and I'm just so proud of City Man and of course his stallion,” he said. “It's a double win for me.”

A three-time graded stakes winner, Decorated Invader had to overcome drawing the outermost post in a full field of 12 in the Fort Lauderdale, but was put into contention right away by jockey Tyler Gaffalione, pressing 34-1 longshot pacesetter Winfromwithin and was still there at the end.

“I thought he ran very well because he had the terrible post. It was very encouraging. Let's not forget he was a very nice 2-year-old. It took me a while to get his form back, but I loved the race yesterday,” Clement said. “As long as both horses are doing well and training well, hopefully we'll be able to run them in the Pegasus.”

Trainer Todd Pletcher said Colonel Liam (Liam's Map) would remain under consideration for the Pegasus Turf following his sixth-place finish as the favorite in the Fort Lauderdale. Colonel Liam, who won the Pegasus Turf in 2021 and 2022, was making his first start Saturday since running ninth in the G1 Dubai Turf last March.

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The Week in Review: With Eclipse Ballots Mailed Out in Mid-December, Was Taiba at Disadvantage?

Eclipse Award ballots were sent out electronically to voters on Dec. 12, with 19 days remaining on the calendar in 2022. That's how it's done. The ballot always lands in your in-box with a few weeks to go in the year.

In a normal year, that's not a problem. Come mid-December there are only a handful of major races left on the calendar and most Eclipse races have been wrapped up by then.

But that wasn't the case in 2022. The GI Runhappy Malibu S. at Santa Anita turned into a race that voters had to pay attention to. It included Taiba (Gun Runner) and a win by him in the Dec. 26 race was something a conscientious voter had to consider before casting his or her vote.

Taiba won the Malibu, giving him three Grade I wins on the year and two more than his main competition for the 3-year-old championship, Epicenter (Not This Time). Prepared to vote for Epicenter, I changed my mind after the Malibu and voted for Taiba.

I did the right thing–I waited. But did everybody? And are there voters out there who would have voted for Taiba and not Epicenter had they waited. Might this cost Taiba the Eclipse Award?

This is a problem, but it's one that is completely avoidable.

When you receive your ballot, the subject of the late-year races at Santa Anita is addressed.

“It is strongly encouraged that you consider waiting to vote until after the conclusion of the Grade I races Dec. 26 at Santa Anita Park, which are the Malibu S., the La Brea S. and the American Oaks,” voters are told. Votes can be received as late as Jan. 3.

All that helps, buy why give voters and option to cast their ballots before the year is over?

According to publicist Jim Gluckson, it's not yet known how many people voted in 2022 before the Malibu. In 2021, 13 votes came in before the Dec. 26 races at Santa Anita. In 2020, it was only seven.

That's good news and shows that people are being careful, but even seven votes or 13 votes is seven or 13 too many when you consider how close the Epicenter-Taiba vote is likely to be. The fix is obvious. Do not accept any votes until Jan. 1 and then give voters an extra five or six days beyond Jan. 3 to get their votes in. What's the hurry? Get it right.

Todd Vs. Chad

In the same column where I threw my support behind Taiba for the 3-year-old championship, I wrote that Todd Pletcher was the “obvious” choice for the Eclipse Award for leading trainer. Steve Laymon, the co-owner of GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint winner and Chad Brown-trainee Goodnight Olive (Ghostzapper), emailed to say he thought that Pletcher was anything but a no-brainer for the award and that Brown deserved consideration. He's right.

In several relevant categories, Brown's numbers are better than Pletcher's. He had more winners (244-223), more stakes winners (51-36) and more Grade I winners (18-17). Brown's stable had earnings of $31,057,362, while Pletcher bankrolled $30,482,937. Brown won with 26% of his starters, while Pletcher won with 22%.

Nonetheless, I still feel Pletcher deserves the title, based largely on the fact that he will have trained three champions in 2022 in Nest (Curlin), Malathaat (Curlin) and Forte (Violence). That's a phenomenal, Eclipse Award-worthy feat. Goodnight Olive will be the champion and a Brown-trained horse may win in the filly and mare turf category. At best, he can get two. Pletcher also deserves a lot of points for finishing one-two in the GI Belmont S.

Two great trainers and two great years. But the edge goes to Pletcher.

Has Gmax Fixed All the Bugs?

It was announced last week that Trakus, which debuted in 2006, is shutting down. The company that operated the timing and tracking system revealed that it was losing money and that the time had come to pull the plug. Trakus went a long way toward bringing the timing of races out of the dark ages and it will be missed.

But perhaps the biggest issue is that, with Trakus no longer an option, more and more tracks will convert to Gmax. Gmax is the timing system that is operated by Equibase, a subsidiary of The Jockey Club, and competed with Trakus for business. That could be a problem.

Since Gmax came on the scene in 2018, it has been plagued by problems and there have been numerous instances at several tracks where the final times of races were inaccurate. In a sport where bettors rely heavily on how fast races were run and speed figures that is unacceptable. Worse yet, it was inconceivable that in 2022 and with all the technology out there, horse racing couldn't figure out a way to accurately time its races.

Fortunately, it appears that Equibase has figured out how to solve what had been the most pressing issue, getting the times right when it comes to the final time of a race. Randy Moss, whose many duties in the industry include his work with the Beyer speed figure team, has been an outspoken critic of Gmax and has pressed The Jockey Club to fix what has been broken. Moss said that the Gmax timing system now includes a wireless beam that is used in conjunction with the GPS technology to record the final times. The new system is working, and Moss said he no longer finds any serious problems when it comes to getting the final times of the races right at Gmax tracks.

However, according to Moss, The Jockey Club has yet to address the issue of fractional times. He says that inaccuracies in this area are still a frequent problem.

“We've seen many races where the fractions are off by two-fifths or three-fifths of a second,” he said. “There is a difference between :21.80 and :22.15. To handicappers, that's a big difference. Some fractions are reasonably accurate and it varies from race to race. But it is a problem.”

Moss said that the reported fractions in the 2021 GI Breeders' Cup Distaff and the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, run at Del Mar and timed with Gmax, were not correct.

“At Del Mar for the Breeders' Cup, they had converted to the hybrid beams, so the final times were good,” he said. “At the same time, some of the fractional times were not. Remember how incredibly fast the fractions were for the Distaff? They were off by two to three-fifths of a second. The pace was still extremely fast, but it wasn't as fast as the posted times. The same thing with the Classic. People were wondering how Knicks Go could run that fast and still hang on. He didn't run as fast as the fractional times that were posted.”

Moss said he has been told that The Jockey Club is aware of the problem and is experimenting with using wireless beams to record fractional times. That would be a needed step in the right direction and can't happen soon enough.

The post The Week in Review: With Eclipse Ballots Mailed Out in Mid-December, Was Taiba at Disadvantage? appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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‘Great End To The Year’: Rice Takes Both Trainer, Owner Titles At Aqueduct Fall Meet

Linda Rice enjoyed a tremendous fall meet at Aqueduct, leading the way in both the trainer standings [20 wins] and owner standings [10 wins].

Rice, who posted a training record of 93-20-23-13, secured the eighth training title of her career and first since the 2020 Aqueduct winter meet.

As leading owner at the 29-day fall meet, Rice secured a record of 33-10-6-2, earning $342,562 in purses with a win percentage of 30.30 and in-the-money rate of 54.55 percent.

“My staff has done a great job,” Rice said. “I have people that have worked for me for 25 years. They are dedicated, terrific people, and they're like family to me. I can't overstate their efforts in this. It's pretty exciting and a great end to the year.”

Rice said her barn grew stronger over the course of the year after a difficult 2021 Big A fall meet in which she won just two races. However, the stable picked up steam through the spring/summer meet at Belmont Park, finishing in a tie for fifth with 15 wins ahead of a strong effort at Saratoga where she finished sixth with 14 wins. The stable recorded 18 wins at the Belmont at the Big A fall meet to finish second behind Chad Brown.

“We had a tough winter last year at Aqueduct and struggled through that a little bit. In the summer, things were starting to come together,” Rice said. “But we finished second behind Chad at the fall meet, so things had really started to pick up.”

Rice, who currently oversees a string of 70 horses, said part of her success has been a sharpened focus on the claiming game.

“Over the last five years, it's been so difficult to buy horses at the sales at value prices,” Rice said. “I love to buy weanlings, yearlings and 2-year-olds but you go the sales and you get outbid a lot, especially with partnerships and investors pooling their money. It makes it difficult to buy what you want.

“So, I decided to do more claiming for my clients that have limited budgets and I think that's worked really well for them,” continued Rice. “We've had a lot of great claims this year. We've had failures, too, but you just have to recognize when you have a claim that's marginal at best and discuss it with your client and move on. You just have to be realistic.”

Among Rice's most successful claims is Cloud Nine Stable's graded-stakes placed New York-bred Betsy Blue, who was haltered for $50,000 out of an optional-claiming score in March 2021 at the Big A just one start after being claimed for $25,000 from a state-bred maiden win.

Through 17 starts for Rice, the now 5-year-old Tonalist mare has posted a record of 7-6-2, including a third in the Grade 3 Go for Wand on December 3 here before returning on one week's rest to take the Garland of Roses.

“She was a seven-way shake for $25,000 and we wheeled back and got her for $50,000 and she's just been a super-nice filly to have in the barn,” Rice said. “She shows up every time and has made over $600,000 now. You hope to have more claims like that.”

Rice said Betsy Blue, bred by Blue Devil Racing Stable, is on target for the $100,000 Interborough on January 21 at the Big A with an eye on another graded attempt in the Grade 3, $250,000 Barbara Fritchie on February 18 at Laurel Park.

Another strong claim for Rice is Sheriff Bianco, a now 5-year-old New York-bred Speightster gelding that she haltered for $30,000 out of a winning effort on July 9 on the Belmont turf.

Bred by SF Bloodstock, the improving bay had competed almost exclusively on turf for his former conditioner Wesley Ward and subsequently posted a pair of third-place efforts for Rice on the Saratoga turf in state-bred allowance tilts. His career path changed when taking an off-the-turf state-bred allowance by 11 3/4-lengths in October at Belmont at the Big A over a sloppy and sealed main track.

Sheriff Bianco has since made three successive six-furlong dirt starts at Aqueduct – each garnering matching career-best 94 Beyer Speed Figures – including a state-bred optional-claiming win on November 17 and an open-company allowance score over muddy and sealed going on December 17. He finished a game second here Friday in an open optional-claiming tilt.

“Those type of claims don't happen every day, but you look at a horse like Sheriff Bianco, who we claimed for $30,000. On the turf that's what he was worth, but the next thing you know, he's become a really nice dirt horse for us this fall,” Rice said. “They're not all going to work out, but I've gone to doing more claiming because the sales have become so expensive.”

Rice will also have her eye on the Kentucky Derby point standings this year as she prepares Chester and Mary Broman's New York homebred Arctic Arrogance for a start in Saturday's one-mile $150,000 Jerome, which offers 10-4-3-2-1 qualifying points to the top-five finishers.

By Frosted and out of the Uncle Mo mare Modest Maven, Arctic Arrogance made his first three starts in state-bred company, graduating in his September 5 debut in a six-furlong sprint at the Spa over muddy and sealed going ahead of a pacesetting second in the seven-furlong Bertram F. Bongard on September 29 at Belmont at the Big A.

He exited that effort to win the one-turn mile Sleepy Hollow in gate-to-wire fashion on October 30 at Belmont at the Big A before battling to a game runner-up effort to Dubyuhnell when stretched out to nine furlongs on December 3 here in the Grade 2 Remsen, garnering four Kentucky Derby qualifying points.

“We really didn't think of him as a Derby horse going into this fall. Mr. Broman and I said let's just see how far we make it,” recalled Rice. “He ran really well in the Remsen. We were delighted with that effort. So, let's see how far we get and maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised.”

Arctic Arrogance has breezed back twice, including a five-eighths effort Saturday in 1:03 flat over the Belmont dirt training track.

“The track had been really slow and cuppy, so I delayed his breeze two days waiting for a better track,” Rice said. “The track was pretty heavy, but he worked beautifully.”

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