Courvoisier, a stakes-winning son of champion Take Charge Brandi, has been sold to begin his stud career in Korea, according to Korea Racing Authority records.
The 4-year-old son of Tapit arrived in the country on Dec. 26, 2022, and he will stand as property of owner Son Byeong Hyeon. He was purchased as a racing or stallion prospect by K.O.I.D., the major bloodstock purchaser for Korean interests, for $180,000 at last year's Keeneland November Horses of Racing Age Sale.
Racing for owners Hill 'n' Dale Equine Holdings and James Spry, Courvoisier won two of eight starts and earned $162,200.
He began his career in the Mid-Atlantic during the late summer of his 2-year-old season, racing at Monmouth Park and Delaware Park for trainer Kelly Breen. The colt earned his first win in an Aqueduct maiden special weight to close out his season, then he started his 3-year-old stand with a 1 1/4-length score in the listed Jerome Stakes at the same track.
Courvoisier stayed in the New York-based road to the Kentucky Derby for one more race in the Grade 3 Withers Stakes, where he tired to seventh. His connections diverted to Parx Racing for his next start, a third-place effort in the City of Brotherly Love Stakes at Parx Racing, and his final start came that summer in the G3 West Virginia Derby, where he finished sixth.
Bred in Kentucky by Elevage II and Hill 'n' Dale Equine Holdings, Courvoisier is the most successful runner to date out of the Giant's Causeway mare Take Charge Brandi, who earned the Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old filly in 2014 on the strength of a campaign that featured wins in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and the G1 Starlet Stakes.
His third dam is the 2014 Broodmare of the Year Take Charge Lady, who earned the title on the success of champion Will Take Charge and Grade 1 winner Take Charge Indy, while later adding another Grade 1 winner in As Time Goes By. Courvoisier connects to Take Charge Lady through second dam Charming, who in addition to Take Charge Brandi, has also produced Grade 1 winner Omaha Beach and Irish Group 1-placed Courage Under Fire.
The world we share with these amazing animals may be an ever-changing one, but its mysteries abide. We consider ourselves ever more knowledgeable, ever more certain, riding the slipstream of science. Yet how much do we truly know, when Afternoon Deelites holds out for all those years and then waits just six days before following his owner to whatever shore may (or may not) lie beyond the horizon of life?
The same journey was made this week by the trainer of Alydar. John Veitch laid the ground for the greatest Triple Crown campaign of any horse that never won a Triple Crown race by giving him 10 starts as a juvenile. Curiously, however, trainers of the succeeding generation appear to have decided either that they have found a better way; or at least that the materials provided, since breeding became an almost exclusively commercial enterprise, are no longer equal to the same kind of treatment.
Trainers today map out the road to the Derby with two priorities: minimize gas consumption, and avoid traffic. That way, they feel, their charges can reach Churchill with a relatively full tank and pristine engine. But the fact is that you always feel able to drive a car more aggressively once it has taken a few bumps and scratches. And you also learn far more about its capacity and response if you have repeatedly had to accelerate or brake to get out of trouble, as compared with cruising along an open road and every six weeks overtaking a laboring truck while barely changing gear.
In the prevailing environment, then, we must give credit to the people at Fair Grounds for redressing the shortfall in conditioning by extending the distance of all three legs of their trials program. If horses can no longer get the kind of mental and physical foundation they once derived from sheer volume of racing, then at least they can have a little more aggregate. With a field of 14, moreover, the GII Risen Star S. is meanwhile guaranteed to steepen the learning curve.
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Saturday will be only the fourth time the race has been run over this extra 1/16th, yet its last two winners have both gone on to finish second in the Derby. One, of course, was actually promoted to first place; while much the same was done for the other by voters at the recent Eclipse Awards.
To be fair, the Risen Star was already on a roll, having lately produced a GI Preakness winner, the phenomenal Gun Runner and the promising stallion Girvin. Between here and Oaklawn, then, you won't find many handicappers nowadays still reducing the quest for the Derby winner to the two dimensions of East and West Coasts. Paradoxically, however, I feel that a still better way to regenerate the Triple Crown trail lurks right at the other end of the spectrum.
Alydar started his Classic campaign over seven furlongs; so too, as it happens, did Afternoon Deelites. With Diana Firestone also among the week's obituaries, we might mention Honest Pleasure and Genuine Risk, who both resumed in sprints as well. That had long been standard procedure, for the old school, as a way of sharpening a horse without penetrating to a vulnerable margin of fitness.
I've often remarked on the dilution of the Derby since the willful exclusion of sprinters under the starting points system. Okay, so they finally managed a meltdown last year and so set up a historic aberration in every way. But otherwise the race has lately been dominated by those setting or sharing a pace shorn of raw sprint competition. And I do think that the Derby's status as the definitive test of the American Thoroughbred, identifying the kind of genes we should want to replicate, is suffering as a result.
Between trainers' dread of running horses at all, and the imperative to bank points when they actually do, we're ending up with the worst of both worlds. Remember that it was as recently as 2015 that Nyquist and Exaggerator cranked each other up over seven in the GII San Vicente S., in 1:20.7, and that didn't work out too badly on Derby day.
I really do think that loading a few points into the San Vicente and the GIII Swale S. would be a smart move by Churchill. Because it doesn't feel as though the model nowadays favored by trainers is working on too many levels. It certainly doesn't work for fans, who get a woefully condensed narrative and reduced engagement; it arguably doesn't help the horses, sent straight into the red zone when they can't be fully fit; and I'm not sure it's working for the Derby, either as a spectacle or as a signpost to genes that can carry meaningful speed.
In the meantime, aptitudes of more obvious pertinence to the Derby scenario will at least be examined in this crowd scene for the Risen Star. And wait, look at this: there's actually a horse in the field with eight starts to his name already. Determinedly (Cairo Prince) is followed here by the pair of Tapits he held off in an allowance last month, a performance rather too faintly praised because everyone had written a different script in advance. Actually this horse's own part keeps being rewritten, having started out on turf and apparently flirted with a return to sprinting. But maybe he can keep some of these flashier types honest, and help to measure the kind of talent Victory Formation (Tapwrit) will need to maintain his unbeaten record from a post out near Baton Rouge.
From a European perspective, it's always surprising that people should be so specific, almost dogmatic, about the optimality of dirt horses operating within so narrow a range. The way people talk, you would think that the poor creatures will drop clean off the edge of the world if venturing that crucial 1/16th too far.
That's why I like to see them given the chance to work on their all-around game, and develop different strengths. Because, if the oldest of Old Friends can be so susceptible even in the span of his years, then what limits might we be putting on the things they do in their prime?
A winner of the Listed UAE 1000 Guineas when last seen, MIMI KAKUSHI (City Of Light-Rite Moment, by Vicar) turned in a game effort to wear down California shipper Ami Please (Goldencents) and win the G3 UAE Oaks by 1 1/4 lengths at Meydan on Friday. She is the eighth filly to complete the Guineas/Oaks double, and first since subsequent American graded winner Shahama (Munnings) in 2022, who was also trained by Salem bin Ghadayer.
Racing for Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, the bay stalked from second as Ami Please crossed over to lead heading into the clubhouse turn. Rival Asawer (Nyquist), fourth in the UAE 1000 Guineas, exchanged some bumps with Mimi Kakushi on the backstretch as they chased the pacesetter. By the far turn, it was a line of three with Mimi Kakushi sandwiched between foes, but pilot Mickael Barzalona did not panic in the tight quarters, which began to ease as Asawer faded leaving the bend.
Mimi Kakushi locked horns with Ami Please at the quarter-pole, and the pair battled hammer and tongs until midstretch. At the 150-metre mark, Mimi Kakushi inched ahead of Ami Please, and eventually crossed the wire about a length to the good of that filly. Asawer hung on for third, a distant four lengths back.
Fourth in her first two local tries in November and December, the Woodford Thoroughbreds-bred graduated by two lengths over Asawer in the UAE 1000 Guineas Trial on Dec. 23. She increased her winning margin to 4 1/2 lengths in the Listed UAE 1000 Guineas on Jan. 20.
Pedigree Notes
The first graded/group winner for her Breeders' Cup-winning sire who stands at Lane's End Farm in Kentucky, Mimi Kakushi is one of four stakes winners overall. City Of Light's eldest foals just turned three. Wild Again stallion Vicar, a winner of the GI Fountain Of Youth S. and GI Florida Derby in 1999, has sired 15 stakes winners as a broodmare sire, with Mimi Kakushi joining Vicar's In Trouble (Into Mischief) and Sandbar (War Pass) as graded/group winners.
A $180,000 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Select yearling turned $250,000 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic juvenile (breeze video), Mimi Kakushi is a half-sister to three-time stakes winner Moment Is Right (Medaglia d'Oro), and the stakes-winning Laudation (Congrats). Her dam, who won both the Bed o' Roses H. and Distaff H. at Aqueduct at Grade II level, has a yearling filly by Cajun Breeze. Her 2023 offspring, by Khozan, was born dead. Sales history: $180,000 Ylg '21 FTKJUL; $250,000 2yo '22 FTIMAY. Lifetime Record: 5-3-0-0.
O-Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum. B-Woodford Thoroughbreds, LLC (KY). T-Salem bin Ghadayer.
Mimi Kakushi – what a star for Salem bin Ghadayer & @mickaelbarzalon
Tom Scudamore has announced his retirement from the saddle with immediate effect on Friday after partnering over 1,500 winners in a 25-year career.
The 40-year-old bows out with 10 Cheltenham Festival winners under his belt, highlighted by Thistlecrack's World Hurdle victory in 2016.
Scudamore took his last ride at Leicester on Thursday and after being unseated from Ya Know Yaseff, he decided the time was right to exit the stage.
He said, “I've had a fantastic time and all good things must come to an end. Unfortunately my time has come. Time waits for no man and I don't see it as retirement, just a job change.
“I'm going to take stock, but I've got options to work in the media, I'm going to continue being an ambassador in my relationship with Coral and I'd like to stay involved in some way, shape or form.
“I've built a lot of good relationships in racing and I'd like to use those to best effect. I've got lots of options and lots of things in the pipeline, I've got plenty to look forward to.”
The rider hails from a racing dynasty, with his father Peter an eight-times champion jockey over jumps, while his grandfather Michael rode Oxo to victory in the 1959 Grand National. His brother, Michael, is also a successful trainer.
Asked if he might consider joining his brother in a training career, Scudamore said, “That is an option. Michael is doing a fantastic job on his own, whether that's with Michael or with David, I will always be there and helping out in some way. Whether that is with owners or schooling or buying horses for them, I will be involved everywhere. I will just let the dust settle and see where we are. I want to stay involved somehow.”
Mimi Kakushi – what a star for Salem bin Ghadayer & 
UAE Oaks