Month: March 2023

‘Fairytale’ Festival Farewell: Superstar Mare Honeysuckle, Jockey Rachel Blackmore Score In Mares’ Hurdle

Honeysuckle gave Rachael Blackmore the perfect spin on her last dance, waltzing to a farewell victory that will live long in the memory, writes James Toney.

After 16 straight wins, Henry de Bromhead's stable star had suffered defeat for the first time in her two starts before this last hurrah at Prestbury Park.

All but the truest of believers started to question all we had previously taken for granted, oh ye of little faith.

Pundits debated why Honeysuckle was being aimed at the Mares' Hurdle here, a race she won in 2020, rather than bid for a hat-trick of Champion Hurdle titles.

However, de Bromhead knows his horse – he knew that Constitution Hill, the winner of the day's championship showpiece would prove too strong, and wanted to end on a high.

And what a high this was, the sort of giddying, intoxicating, chuck your paper, throw your hat and hug your neighbor sort of buzz that Cheltenham does better than anywhere else.

Those that were here to witness this won't forget it in a hurry but thoughts were always with one special fan who wasn't – de Bromhead's 13-year-old son Jack, who tragically died in a pony racing accident last year.

“We all wish a very special kid could be here today but he's watching down on us,” said Blackmore.

“She was unbelievable. The way Henry has produced her every day is phenomenal. As a jockey, I'm so grateful he doesn't listen to pundits or I wouldn't get the pleasure of walking back into the winner's enclosure again.

“She's an incredible mare and she's been incredible for my career. This is for everyone down in Knockeen who has looked after her over the years, Henry's head lad does an unbelievable lad with all the horses and she [Honeysuckle] is just a credit to everyone.

“Kenny (Alexander) is one of the coolest owners you'll ever ride for. It's just a brilliant day.”

Blackmore and Honeysuckle are the Queens of this sport of Kings but de Bromhead is the quiet power behind their throne.

The celebrations in the parade ring that followed this win were a joy to watch, likely matched with a party to end all parties at Downes Bar, the family-owned Knockeen landmark that would have been jumping after this.

“It's incredible and I'm just so happy for all of us, you dream of the fairytale ending but so often it doesn't happen, it's amazing,” said de Bromhead.

“She's such an unbelievable horse, we've had a terrible year and the support everyone has given us has been amazing.

“I know people love this horse and we're really grateful for it, it's been an incredibly tough time for us all.

“It's a mental sport this. This is the result that everyone wanted, the mare and Rachael Blackmore are just incredible together.

“We picked the right race, especially when you see the other lad in the Champion Hurdle. But this is also for the big team we've got back at home that is behind her.

“She rarely knows when's she is beaten and she read the script. It's an incredible day that she's going out like she is.”

Leave the stage will the applause is loudest is what theatre folk say.

And this rousing reception will be ringing in ears all week.

The post ‘Fairytale’ Festival Farewell: Superstar Mare Honeysuckle, Jockey Rachel Blackmore Score In Mares’ Hurdle appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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There She Goes: Honeysuckle Leaves Cheltenham in Raptures

CHELTENHAM, UK–One champion crowned as another exits. But there was no quiet shuffling off, stage left, for Honeysuckle (GB) (Sulamani {Ire}), who was roared home, roared in, and roared out of the Cheltenham winner's circle that provides no better setting for equine coronations. 

Just forty minutes earlier the new king of the hurdling division, Constitution Hill (GB), had delivered exactly the performance expected of him but one which can never be guaranteed in the hurly-burly of championship races at the Festival. Plenty of commentators are already suggesting that the son of Blue Bresil (Fr) is the greatest hurdler of all time after he has made just six spotless starts under Rules. Whether he is or isn't is almost irrelevant. The horse who gave Nicky Henderson his record ninth win in the Unibet Champion Hurdle is the best there is right now by a long way: nine lengths, in fact, if we take his winning margin as a measure. And on any other day, in any other week, his superb round under Nico de Boinville would have been the stand-alone performance that gave all comers at Prestbury Park that special I-was-there moment. 

Who, after all, will forget that flamboyant, spring-heeled leap at the last, not because he needed to but just because he could? The image of that split second alone will linger on, serving as it did to underline the untapped reserves of Constitution Hill at the end of a race that had his rivals hard to the pump in fruitless pursuit. Then along came Honeysuckle.

“This is just a horse race and a bit of fun, it's not real life,” said the great mare's owner Kenny Alexander in the aftermath of the Close Brother Mares' Hurdle, and his may have been the coolest head there, for all around him others were losing theirs. “We knew it would be Honeysuckle's final race, and those who have adored her and Rachael Blackmore–because, let's face it, this is a dream double act–will have shared the pain of her two defeats this season, even though her mighty record now stands at 19 for 17. Honeysuckle owed us nothing, but there was a score to be settled nonetheless. 

When the headstrong Love Envoi (Ire) (Westerner {GB}) looked as though she would have her freewheeling way all the way to the line, there was for a moment a feeling of resignation, that this would be okay, to see Honeysuckle finish second for the second time; an honourable swansong. But Honeysuckle herself, driven by Blackmore and responding all the way from the back of the last, had other ideas. 

“She's tried to kill me for five years now,” said her trainer Henry de Bromhead, and you could see that feisty mare dig deep to give everything she had left to power up the hill for one glorious last hurrah. Four runs at the Cheltenham Festival: two Champion Hurdles, two Mares' Hurdles. What a girl. 

With Blackmore still breathless after her own heroic effort, she immediately understood that this was about more than just winning a horse race. 

“We all wish a very special kid could be here today, but he's watching down on us,” she said, with thoughts of Jack de Bromhead, the 13-year-old son of Honeysuckle's trainer and his wife Heather, who lost his life last September in a pony racing accident. He is officially commemorated at Cheltenham on Thursday with the running of the Jack de Bromhead Mares' Novices' Hurdle in which his father will field five of the 21 runners. 

For the de Bromhead stable, Honeysuckle's work is done, but she will remain very much within the Alexander fold. The owner-breeder, who some years ago bought New Hall Stud in Ayrshire from the Thom family, has, with the help of Peter Molony, set about establishing an elite band of National Hunt broodmares. Now that colony has its queen, who will head to Scotland eventually once she is safely in foal. Molony confirmed in the winner's enclosure, lump in throat as he spoke, that Honeysuckle would return to Ireland to his Rathmore Stud initially, and that she is already booked for a first tryst with Coolmore's Walk In The Park (Ire).

Alexander added, “She's retired now and I've had an absolute blast owning her. I'm lost for words to be honest, the celebration was out of control. If you can't lose it a bit after winning a race like that though, you probably shouldn't own racehorses.

“It just shows you how great the sport is when she's getting a cheer like that. They don't love me, that's for sure. They may love Rachael, and even Henry a bit, but they really love that horse.”

As one industry stalwart put it as Honeysuckle took a final lap of honour of the Cheltenham parade ring: “What an hour of magic.”

At times, it is easy to get ground down by some of racing's woes, from major issues to petty bureaucracies. But on days like Tuesday, when the winter sun finally showed its face after weeks of brutal weather, as if to say, “Go on then, have your fun”, the fun never felt so good. From Marine Nationale (Fr) (French Navy {Ire}) in the opening Supreme Novices' Hurdle and two victories on the day for his engaging young jockey Michael O'Sullivan, to a dust-up in the last between another three of the best amateurs in the game, it was a day to remember exactly why we love this great sport. A day that belonged, equally, to Constitution Hill and Honeysuckle. 

 

 

The post There She Goes: Honeysuckle Leaves Cheltenham in Raptures appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Turfway Park Will Now Remain Open For Year-Round Training

Turfway Park officials announced Tuesday that following the close of the Winter/Spring Meet on April 1, the barn area and racetrack will remain open for year-round training and stabling in Florence, Ky.

Trainers wishing to fill out a stall application can visit www.TurfwayPark.com or contact Peggy Pate at Peggy.Pate@turfwaypark.com. Stall applications are due by March 24.

This year, Turfway Park finished construction on a new dormitory for backstretch workers and five new barns. The track can stable approximately 1,000 horses.

Local trainers expected to remain stabled at Turfway Park and race on the Kentucky circuit include Jeff Greenhill, Will Walden and Ethan West. They'll join Kentucky mainstays Steve Asmussen, Brad Cox and Mike Maker who are all expected to keep a string of horses stabled in Northern Kentucky.

The post Turfway Park Will Now Remain Open For Year-Round Training appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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‘This Is Where I Was Meant To Be’: Karen Chavez ‘A Vital Part’ Of New York Race Track Chaplaincy

In following her older sister to New York from Venezuela, the last thing on the mind of 10-year-old Karen Barros was horse racing.

That was more than three decades ago. Barros, now Chavez, would become a fifth-grader and one of two E.S.L. students in her class at Clara H. Carlson Elementary School in Elmont, just wanting to acclimate. Some years later, after Nick Caras of the New York Division of the Race Track Chaplaincy of America (RTCANY) visited her church looking for volunteers, a teenage Chavez began working on the Belmont Park backstretch – and found her calling.

“When I arrived as a girl, I was going to spend the summer here and see if I could get into school,” said Mrs. Chavez, now the Chaplain's general manager and married to its Chaplain, Humberto Chavez. “But God her other plans for me. After I began volunteering on the backstretch, it was like puzzle pieces coming together. Looking back today, I realize this is where I was meant to be.”

Those who attended the Chaplaincy's annual awards luncheon last August in Saratoga, when Mrs. Chavez spoke movingly about her journey, may be familiar with parts of that story. Caras, the Chaplaincy's program director, said he never tires of hearing her refer to it, citing “Karen's authentic and deeply moving devotion” to the serving the men and women who look after the horses on New York's Thoroughbred tracks.

“We're a team here and Karen is a vital part of it,” said Caras. “What we do on the backstretch and the services we provide are only as good as our people. Karen's hard work and creativity make us better in all kinds of ways.”

At the track, Mrs. Chavez felt at home from the get-go, thanks in large part to her sister Lety and brother-in-law Ruben Anez, who as newlyweds had preceded her to New York and found jobs on the backstretch at Belmont Park. To cover Mrs. Chavez's airfare when she first came to the U.S., Letty took up a collection among co-workers in her barn and raised the funds.

Her family's work on the backstretch was Chavez' introduction to thoroughbred racing. That bond deepened when she began volunteering as a teenager as part of her church's youth group. When Caras came calling again, this time in 2003 to ask Pastor Chavez if he would consider becoming Chaplain for the backstretch, those puzzle pieces really came together.

“We had a young family at the time and really had our hands full but felt really strongly in our hearts that God wanted us here,” said Mrs. Chavez. “There were a lot of people we needed to serve.”

Pastor Chavez accepted the position, and Mrs. Chavez, with three sons at home, began volunteering all over again, taking a staff position in 2006.

“As we began serving with the Chaplaincy,” she said with a laugh, “I realized God had brought me back to the place that brought me to the U.S. in the first place.”

Today, from its building inside Gate 6 at Belmont Park, the Chaplaincy runs several programs for the backstretch community. Among the most enduring is its weekly food pantry, which during the pandemic served an average of 500 families a week. Those numbers have dropped significantly to about 120 families a week, but the need, and the program, remain.

Driving some of the Chaplaincy's programs is a straight-forward philosophy – “seeing a need on the backstretch and responding,” as Mrs. Chavez put it. An example is the summer enrichment program for backstretch children in Saratoga, which started back in 2006 after she and Caras recognized that some backstretch families, at considerable expense, were sending their children to stay with relatives in their home countries during the summer meet.

Today, children can stay with their families and attend the enrichment Pine Grove Campground in Saratoga, where they're safely cared for and supervised. Upwards of 30 backstretch families also stay in the recently-renovated cabins at Pine Grove for the meet.

Mrs. Chavez takes particular pride in developing the Chaplaincy's women's enrichment and mentoring program, which has helped hundreds of women tackle issues from learning English to providing better nutrition for their families and starting businesses. This month for International Women's Day, the Chaplaincy hosted a seminar for backstretch women on starting a business. That program has since morphed into separate teen mentoring groups for girls and boys; and the Chaplaincy often steers members of the backstretch community to related Belmont Park-based programs of the Backstretch Employee Service Team (B.E.S.T.) and the Belmont Childcare Association (BCCA).

Just ahead is the eagerly-anticipated opening of the Chaplaincy's 3,500-square-foot building, which will double the Chaplaincy's current space and become its hub. A team of New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) carpenters, electricians and plumbers is working on the building, which is expected to open in 2023. It will house a chapel, a multi-purpose room, a classroom to be named after Hall of Famer and longtime NYRTCA supporter Cot Campbell, and staff offices.

After the building opens, the Chaplaincy will continue to utilize the trailers for the weekly food pantry and clothing drive, which are currently held outdoors. A core component of the NYRTCA, the non-denominational services now held at Belmont Park's recreation hall, will move into a dedicated chapel within the new building.

The founding partners of the new building are the late Marylou Whitney, John Hendrickson, former NYRA President and CEO Chris Kay and his wife Kristine, Michael Dubb, Kenny and Lisa Troutt, West Point Thoroughbreds, Seth A. and Beth S. Klarman, Dogwood Stable, and the Estate of Dolores Ochota.

Thoroughbred owner and NYRA board member Michael Dubb supplied the bulk of all materials for the new Chaplaincy Center. Mr. Dubb is also the founder and chairman of the BCCA at Belmont Park; and he and his wife, Lee, founded Faith's House, the BCCA childcare center for the backstretch community at Saratoga Race Course, which opened in the summer of 2021.

“Every day, we see the progress of the new building and it's very exciting,” said Mrs. Chavez. “The new building will allow us to provide the kind of services needed by the backstretch. It's a community I've just grown to love and a place I belong.”

To learn more about the New York Race Track Chaplaincy, visit: https://www.rtcany.org/

The post ‘This Is Where I Was Meant To Be’: Karen Chavez ‘A Vital Part’ Of New York Race Track Chaplaincy appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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