June, 2023 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Repo Rocks Is Racing’s Most Improved Horse. How Did Jamie Ness Do It?

When Repo Rocks (Tapiture) finished ninth, beaten 16 lengths, in the Oct. 29 GII Bold Ruler S. at Aqueduct it looked like the horse had hit rock bottom. He ran a 62 Beyer, had lost six straight races and his last two starts by a combined 29 1/4 lengths. He had won just three from 29 lifetime starts.

But on Saturday that same horse will be the second choice at 4-1 in the morning line for the Metropolitan H. at Belmont Park. He's won five of his last six starts, all of them in stakes company and has a legitimate shot of winning one of the most prestigious races on the calendar, one with a $1 million purse.

What has changed? The trainer. After the Bold Ruler, his owner, Double B Racing Stables, transferred him from trainer Gregory DiPrima to the barn of Jamie Ness. Some six months later he is the most glaring example yet of Ness's ability to take seemingly ordinary horses and turn them into winning machines.

He says there are no magic formulas, just hard work and good horsemanship. When it comes to Repo Rocks, even he has trouble explaining how he got the horse to where he is.

“I don't really know,” Ness said when asked to explain the gelding's turnaround. “The owner sent him to me maybe six months ago. He had been a pretty good horse, but his form had been tailing off. I had a couple other horses for them that had done good. They said see what you can do. For whatever reason, he just did good in our program. He's a big, strong, sound, good training horse. We're just happy to have him.”

When pressed for more answers, Ness said he believes the work he has done with Repo Rocks in the mornings has paid off.

“When I first got him, I was looking to get his confidence back up,” he said. “I thought maybe I would run him in a two other than allowance or even run him for a tag. That was the route we were thinking about taking. Then he worked really good. He's kind of a hard horse to train. He wants to get out, he kind of wants to run off. I think I got him settled down and training right and that was the key to it. Since he worked so good, we decided to take a shot in a stakes (the Let's Give Thanks S. at Parx). We took a shot and he won. He just got up. I thought then he'd be a bottom level stakes horse around here and we'd be fine. But he just kept getting better and better and better and here we are.”

After the race at Parx, he returned at his home track to win the Blitzen S. and then Ness started aiming higher. Repo Rocks won the GIII Toboggan S. and then the Stymie S. before finishing second in the GI Carter H. He returned to the winner's circle in his most recent start, the GII Westchester S, which he won by 5 1/4 lengths and earned a 109 Beyer.

Repo Rocks started off his career in the barn of Bill Mott, going 0-for-7 for the Hall of Famer. He was claimed for $40,000 by Tom Morley and managed to win a maiden special weight race for that barn. Then, he was claimed by his current owners for $40,000 at the 2021 Saratoga meet and turned over to trainer Juan Vazquez. After making seven starts for that trainer he was sent to DiPrima, who has struggled to make it to the winner's circle over the last two years. His combined record for 2022 and 2023 is 4-for-118.

Jamie Ness | MJC

Those who have closely been following Ness's career couldn't have been that surprised that Repo Rocks had blossomed under his care. Ness, who started training in 1999, is a prolific winner on the Mid-Atlantic circuit. He has 3,947 career wins and is winning at a rate of 25% for his career. He's had three years where his winning percentage has topped 30%. Ness is a regular at Parx, where he's won the last three training titles, Delaware Park and at the Maryland tracks.

When you consistently do that well, win at such a high percentage and improve so many of the horses that come into your barn whispers and innuendo are sure to follow. Ness acknowledges that there are those within the industry who believe that his success is too good to be true and that he must be cheating. He said that's something he has been able to block out.

“There's nothing I can do about that other than bring my horses over,” he said. “We're running under the same protocols that everybody else is. They can say whatever they want. It doesn't bother me. We'll prove it on the racetrack. I have turned some horses around but I've had a lot of horses that go the other way. They don't talk about those horses. Former stakes horse that become bottom-level claimers. We've been winning at a high percentage for a long time, so I've been dealing with the naysayers for a long time. I've learned to deal with it and at the end of the night I know that I'm doing the right thing That's all that matters.”

He said there was a time when he let the doubters get to him.

“It was a little tough at first,” he said. “I wanted to fight back. Early on when I was winning training titles all over the place I had a little trouble with it. But now I don't really give a flying you know what about that stuff. I know, my owners know, my jockeys know the work we put into this. Success doesn't come by accident.”

Ness arrived at Belmont mid-week to prepare Repo Rocks for the most important start of his career. He will also be represented Saturday by Calibrate (Distorted Humor) in the GII Brooklyn S. Calibrate will be making his first start for him after being trained by Coty Rosin. Ness isn't downplaying the moment. Despite having nearly 4,000 wins, he rarely competes at this level. Repo Rocks is just the second horse Ness has started in a Grade I race. The other was Ghost Hunter (Ghostzapper), who finished 11^th in the 2017 GI Arlington Million.

“Winning this, It would mean everything to me,” he said. “The other horse we ran in a Grade I, he was just overmatched. This time I'm coming into the race with a shot. It makes those times I was running $5,000 claimers at Beulah Park and all the hard work we've put in worth it. Hopefully, it will pay off on Saturday. It's would be good for people like me who are good trainers, but maybe don't have the top horses or opportunities that other people get. It's kind of for all those guys. We've got this opportunity and we're really going to try to take advantage of it.”

It could happen. Repo Rocks is on a roll and his speed figures suggest he's as good as anyone in the field. And he's got Jamie Ness behind him.

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Belinda Stronach Calls For Summit Of Racing’s Leaders To Adopt National Standards Of Care, Safety Policies

Writing in the New York Daily News on June 9, 1/ST chairwoman, CEO and president Belinda Stronach called for a summit of “CEO-level horse racing leadership” to include racetrack owners and veterinarians this summer in Saratoga.

Stronach envisions the event as having “the clear goal of driving uniform standards of care and identifying and committing to investments that will enhance equine safety.”

“I believe it falls on those of us in this industry to lead a conversation directed at establishing a shared set of principles that don't vary state by state,” she wrote. “Moreover, these standards should reflect the rigorous changes we made in California when we faced our own crisis at Santa Anita.”

While the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act was supposed to nationalize welfare and safety standards, Stronach writes that it has not been embraced by everyone in the industry. Touting Santa Anita's significant reduction in equine fatalities since 2019, Stronach encourages track leadership to consider the use of advanced diagnostic imaging, use of artificial intelligence-based analytics to analyze veterinary records, and improve injury reporting through the Equine Injury Database to include training injuries as well as racing incidents.

“Regardless of the findings that come out of Churchill Downs, our industry faces a watershed moment,” Stronach wrote. “The time has come for all stakeholders to meet this moment with a unified commitment to the safety and welfare of horses and riders. If we can do that, I believe we can earn back the public trust and strengthen the social license required to sustain horse racing into the future.

Read the entire letter at the New York Daily News

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This Side Up: Tapping At The Door Of History

So, what's next? The plague of locusts? The only surprise is that the smoke filling the air at Belmont Park has drifted across the continent from Canadian forests, and didn't actually emerge from a widening fissure in the crust, crumbling daily, that appears to divide horsemen and their horses from the inferno.

Hopefully a reprieve of the GI Belmont S. might yet be extended to some other elements in what has become too relentlessly apocalyptic a narrative. In terms of what has been definitively established, our sport's macabre run of misfortune in recent weeks may owe as much to sulphurs exhaled from hell as to the difference between dirt and synthetic surfaces.

As a community, we obviously have a major challenge on our hands. But that's precisely why we need to avoid panicked, impulsive solutions in favor of calmly diligent, far-sighted leadership. Just because social media has empowered some pretty deranged minorities, we can't allow their disproportionate reach to pervert whole societal agendas.

It would seem pretty unarguable that American racing can benefit from a greater role for synthetics but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Horsemen and handicappers alike have a legitimate stake in dirt racing–and, to be clear, that stake is not just financial but a matter of cultural identity–and there its long history can surely be extended by discovering and addressing any practices that undermine its sustainability. I suspect there's probably quite a crossover between those who are resisting HISA and those who can't abide synthetics–and these are the guys who really need to smell the coffee. If you want to keep dirt racing, then call your dogs off HISA.

Tapit | Sarah Andrew

You couldn't ask for a better context to ponder these issues than the 155th running of a race designed to showcase precisely those genetic assets that equip the Thoroughbred to deal safely with tasks set before an increasingly (and, for the most part, properly) vigilant audience. And that's not just because it asks for the robustness to carry speed for a distance that is nearly freakish, in the American theatre, but also because historically many runners would already have contested two demanding races in the preceding five weeks.

Though it is the trainers who are driving corrosion of the Triple Crown, they implicitly transfer the culpability to the breeders. Hopefully our collective endeavors to identify and resolve vulnerabilities in the Thoroughbred will include analysis of the relative incidence of breakdowns (and not just catastrophic ones) in the stock of different stallions. If so, we might learn whether there's any scientific substance to our nervousness about horses today being “too fast to last.” For now, however, we can only follow our instincts and conscience. But it's certainly striking that Germany should have achieved such a sensational impact with its bloodlines–far outrunning its troubles as a racing economy–by paternalist strictures in favor of soundness and competitive longevity. And even the most stubborn commercial breeders in Europe and America must acknowledge that Japan isn't doing too badly, either, in prizing the same assets.

Happily, the 50th anniversary of Secretariat's Belmont has drawn a perfectly presentable field in both quality and intrigue. With four other Kentucky Derby graduates meanwhile siphoned to the GIII Matt Winn S., it's clear that the Classic taking all the punishment from trainers right now is the Preakness. But how edifying that the Belmont–such an outlier, in the numbly repeating wheelhouse of most American trainers–should retain sufficient prestige to tempt a juvenile champion who'd be well within his rights to find a more obviously congenial way of regrouping from his recent vexations.

Quite a leap of imagination is required to picture a speed brand like Violence siring a Belmont winner, but his grandsire El Prado (Ire) sits comfortingly opposite Arch (behind damsire Blame) in the pedigree of Forte. So you never know, and clearly the runner-up has meanwhile upgraded his white-knuckle GI Florida Derby.

But his second dam was fast (stakes winner at 6f) and will need to have smuggled through some stamina from her own mother. That's by no means impossible, as she was by Seattle Slew and her half-sister by a speedier agency (Storm Cat) unites the pedigrees of 12-furlong Classic winners Contrail (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) and Essential Quality (Tapit), as third and second dam respectively.

Essential Quality, of course, was his sire's fourth Belmont winner, a unique distinction in the modern era. The only precedent, Lexington, had emerged from a forgotten era of four-mile heats and matches to prove an ideal influence for what was then a newfangled type of sprinting in a single, congested dash. The dial has since turned so far that the Belmont stands out as a curio, a positive marathon. Breeders of the 21st Century must count themselves blessed, then, to retain access to such a wholesome influence in the evening of his career.

Forte | Coady Photography

Astoundingly, this time Tapit himself accounts for two of the nine runners, while no fewer than FOUR others are out of his daughters.

The Gainesway patriarch's Belmont record, including in a couple of desperate finishes, is all about the ability to carry speed under duress. That is supposed to be a dirt hallmark, though it was exported to revolutionary effect by Northern Dancer's sons in Europe, where the dynasty's principal heir Frankel (GB)-having himself always run just like a dirt horse-is now siring stock that similarly just keep going.

Actually, there's a case for saying that Tapit is a far more effective turf sire than his stats might imply, given that only his most disappointing foals would even try the weeds. He's certainly been disgracefully untested in Europe. Of just nine Tapits started by British trainers over the last decade, seven are winners and three stakes performers. But whatever the future may hold, in terms of racing surfaces, it looks as though he will just have to settle for being the richest sire in the history of the American sport.

Into Mischief is almost certainly going to run him down, in time, but Tapit started Belmont weekend on a statistical brink–$198 million in progeny earnings, from 999 winners and 99 graded stakes winners–that surely beckons him towards another date with Belmont destiny. And if he's going to make history, then he's also the type of horse that can give us a future.

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Weekend Lineup Presented By Del Mar Ship & Win: Bright Skies Ahead For Belmont Stakes

Following significant improvement in air quality conditions throughout New York State, live racing will resume at Belmont Park Friday. The 11-race card, highlighted by five graded stakes, raises the curtain on the 2023 Belmont Stakes Racing Festival after poor air quality forced the cancelation of Thursday's twilight racing program and the closure of Belmont and Saratoga Race Course for training.

Live racing also resumes Friday at Woodbine and Laurel Park, also affected by poor air quality earlier this week.

On Saturday, a competitive nine-horse field that includes 2022 Champion 2-Year-Old Colt Forte, Grade 1 Preakness Stakes winner National Treasure and three Grade 1 Kentucky Derby alumni comprises the 155th running of the Grade 1, $1.5 million Belmont Stakes.

The Belmont Stakes is one of six Grade 1 events carded for Saturday as part of a 13-race card. The blockbuster Saturday program also features three Breeders' Cup “Win And You're In” qualifying events, including the $500,000 Ogden Phipps [Distaff], $400,000 Jaipur [Turf Sprint], and $1 million Hill 'n' Dale Metropolitan Handicap [Dirt Mile].

In the latter, fan-favorite Cody's Wish will look to build upon an already memorable list of achievements for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott. The “Met Mile,” carded as Race 10, features five Grade 1 winners and awards the winner with a berth to the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile in November at Santa Anita Park.

Other big runners expected to race this weekend at Belmont Park include:

Kentucky Oaks winner Pretty Mischievous in the G1 Acorn
Reigning champion sprinter Elite Power in the G2 True North
Top distaffers Clairiere and Secret Oath face off in the G1 Ogden Phipps
Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint winner Caravel takes on males in the G1 Jaipur

Also this weekend, Churchill Downs' Spring Meet continues at Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky., beginning on Saturday. Sunday's Ellis card is highlighted by the $400,000 Matt Winn (G3), featuring a handful of Kentucky Derby alumni including fourth-place finisher Disarm.

Friday

2:28 p.m. – Grade 1 Just A Game at Belmont Park

After saddling five winners in the race's previous six editions, Brown will send out Peter Brant's In Italian and Speak of the Devil in the one-mile Widener turf contest.

Four-time graded stakes-winner In Italian, who commenced her 5-year-old campaign the same way she tore through her 2022 year by posting a three-length victory in the G1 Jenny Wiley, has registered triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures in four consecutive starts.

Speak of the Devil ran fourth in last year's running of the Just A Game. The French-bred mare did not race again in 2022, but started her 6-year-old year with a fifth-place effort in the G3 Honey Fox in March at Gulfstream Park before earning black type with a third-place finish in the G2 Churchill Distaff Turf Mile in May.

Just A Game Entries

4:41 p.m. – Grade 1 New York Stakes at Belmont Park

War Like Goddess, a force in America's filly and mare turf division over the previous two seasons, will seek her third Grade 1 victory in Friday's 10-furlong inner turf test for older fillies and mares.

Trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, War Like Goddess exits a 1 1/2-length successful seasonal bow in the Grade 3 Bewitch on April 28 at Keeneland, her third consecutive win in that fixture and a continuation of strong 2022 form that she capped with a win in the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational and a third in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Turf – both against males.

Chad Brown, who has won the New York four of the past seven years, including with Bleecker Street in 2022, enters a capable quartet: McKulick, Marketsegmentation, Virginia Joy, and Shantisara.

Godolphin will be represented by the well-traveled With The Moonlight [post 8, William Buick], who is no stranger to these shores, having won last summer's Grade 3 Saratoga Oaks Invitational over 1 3/16 miles.A dual Group 2 winner in Dubai to commence 2023, the Charlie Appleby trainee enters off a pair of losses, including a second in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland and a sixth in the Group 2 Dahlia at Newmarket over soft going.

New York Entries

5:14 p.m. – Grade 1 Acorn Stakes at Belmont Park

Kentucky Oaks winner Pretty Mischievous stands tall amongst her seven rivals as the lone Grade 1 winner in the field with field-best earnings of $1,206,560. Trained by Brendan Walsh, the Into Mischief filly backs up to one turn for this 1 1/16-mile contest for 3-year-old fillies.

Fellow Kentucky Oaks alumnus Dorth Vader [post 1, John Velazquez] makes her first outing since finishing fifth on the First Friday in May, as well as her first start for conditioner George Weaver after making her first nine appearances for Michael “Bo” Yates.

Trainer Chad Brown saddles three contenders in graded stakes-placed Accede [post 8, Flavien Prat]; stakes-winner Occult [post 4, Jose Ortiz]; and maiden winner Randomized [post 2, Manny Franco].

Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher will have two chances to win his fourth Acorn as he sends out the speedy stakes-winner Munnys Gold [post 5, Irad Ortiz, Jr.] and two-time winner Frosty O Toole [post 3, Luis Saez].

Acorn Entries

Saturday

3:02 p.m. – Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes at Belmont Park

Three-time Grade 1 winner Clairiere will face last year's Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks winner Secret Oath for the third time this season when seeking a repeat conquest of the Grade 1, $500,000 Ogden Phipps.

Now a 5-year-old, Steve Asmussen trainee Clairiere is poised for another high-caliber season, which she kicked off with a runner-up effort to Secret Oath in the Grade 2 Azeri on March 11 at Oaklawn Park. She then turned the tables on Secret Oath in Oaklawn Park's Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap on April 15, furiously mowing down the 2022 Kentucky Oaks winner in deep stretch to win by a neck.

After handing Clariere a 2 3/4-length defeat in the Azeri, Secret Oath appeared poised for victory in the upper stretch of the Apple Blossom under Tyler Gaffalione, but was thwarted by her rival in the final furlong. A daughter of Arrogate trained by D. Wayne Lukas, she enters the Ogden Phipps off another neck defeat when second to returning rival Played Hard in the Grade 1 La Troienne on May 6 at Churchill Downs.

Chad Brown-trained Search Results [post 2, Flavien Prat] will make her third straight appearance in a Grade 1 on the Belmont Stakes undercard. The dark bay 5-year-old Into Mischief mare finished third in last year's Ogden Phipps and will be in pursuit of her first Grade 1 victory since capturing the 2021 Acorn here on Belmont Stakes Day. She has finished at least third in 12-of-13 lifetime starts, only missing the board in last year's Breeders' Cup Distaff when sixth beaten 10 lengths.

Ogden Phipps Entries

3:42 p.m. – Grade 1 Woody Stephens Stakes at Belmont Park

General Jim will look to win his third straight graded stakes in Saturday's Grade 1, $400,000 Woody Stephens, a seven-furlong sprint for sophomores at Belmont Park.

Trained by Hall of Famer Shug McGaughey, the Into Mischief colt made the grade in February in the seven-furlong Grade 3 Swale at Gulfstream Park, posting a one-length score over next-out stakes winner Super Chow. General Jim followed last out with a gutsy neck score over returning rival Fort Bragg in a frantic finish in the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile on the Kentucky Derby undercard at Churchill Downs.

Trainer Bob Baffert, a two-time Woody Stephens winner, will saddle a pair of contenders in Fort Bragg [post 8, Joel Rosario] and Arabian Lion [post 3, John Velazquez].

Drew's Gold [post 13, Jose Gomez] is undefeated in four starts and will make his graded debut for trainer James Chapman, who co-owns the $25,000 Keeneland September Yearling Sale purchase in partnership with Stuart Tsujimoto.

Woody Stephens Entries

4:19 p.m. – Grade 1 Jaipur Stakes at Belmont Park

Reigning Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint winner Caravel will again face males as part of an overflow field for the six-furlong Widener turf sprint. Caravel has returned in fine form this year with a pair of 5 1/2-furlong turf sprint wins in Kentucky, taking the Grade 2 Shakertown against males in April at Keeneland and the Unbridled Sidney on Kentucky Oaks Day at Churchill Downs. She was re-routed to the Jaipur after initially being considered for the Group 1 King's Stand on June 20 at Ascot.

Casa Creed [post 11, Luis Saez] has won the last two runnings of this event for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott. Casa Creed traveled to Saudi Arabia for his seasonal debut and lost a heartbreaker in the Group 3 1351 Turf Sprint when a head back of Bathrat Leon. That effort nearly replicated his narrow defeat in that same event last year when a neck in arrears of the supremely talented Songline, who successfully defended the Grade 1 Yasuda Kinen on Sunday in Tokyo.

Jaipur Entries

5:04 p.m. – Grade 1 Met Mile at Belmont Park

Cody's Wish has more than proved worthy of his name, entering the Met Mile on a five-race win streak that includes three consecutive Grade 1 victories at three different racetracks. The Bill Mott trainee exits a facile score in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs on May 6, closing from last-of-9 under returning rider Junior Alvarado to take the lead at the top of the stretch and lengthen his winning margin to 4 3/4 lengths. He earned a 105 Beyer Speed Figure in his 5-year-old debut.

Dual Grade 1-winner Dr. Schivel makes his first trip to the East Coast for conditioner Mark Glatt on the heels of an impressive 4 1/4-length allowance win on May 13 at Santa Anita Park that garnered a career-high 105 Beyer Speed Figure.

Graded stakes-winner Charge It seeks his first Grade 1 victory for Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. The son of Tapit fits in among the top contenders of the field in terms of speed figures with a career-high 111 Beyer Speed Figure when taking the Grade 3 Dwyer by 23 lengths here in June.

Zandon, winner of last year's Grade 1 Blue Grass at Keeneland, may be in search of his first victory since then for trainer Chad Brown, but brings a consistent and competitive record of on-the-board finishes in 5-of-6 starts since.

Fellow Grade 1 winners White Abarrio [post 9, Tyler Gaffalione, 120 pounds] and Doppelganger [post 8, Jevian Toledo, 120 pounds] are both in search of their first trips to the winner's circle since the spring.

Met Mile Entries

5:54 p.m. – Grade 1 Manhattan at Belmont Park

Recent Grade 1 winners Up to the Mark and Red Knight top a decade of contenders for Saturday's 10-furlong inner turf test for 4-year-olds and up.

Up to the Mark exits a breakout performance in the nine-furlong Grade 1 Turf Classic at Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day, dismissing rivals by a widening 3 3/4 lengths and earning an eye-catching 103 Beyer Speed Figure.

Veteran Red Knight enters off a 12th career victory in the 11-furlong Grade 1 Man o' War on May 13, his first top-level tally. The 9-year-old son of Pure Prize was a handy victor under Ortiz Jr., striding out by 1 1/2 lengths at the wire to land his second NYRA stakes, having also taken the 2019 Point of Entry. Since being transferred to Mike Maker prior to his 2022 season, the earner of $1,717,763 has won four of his seven starts, all in stakes company. Tyler Gaffalione picks up the mount from post 6, as Ortiz Jr. has opted for the aforementioned.

Manhattan Entries

7:02 p.m. – Grade 1 Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park

Favorite Forte has drawn the sixth post position in a field of nine for this weekend's Belmont Stakes.

The race will mark a comeback opportunity for the Todd Pletcher-trained colt, who was the subject of much media attention last month when he became a last-minute veterinary scratch from the Kentucky Derby. It was later revealed that, unrelatedly, the Eclipse Award-winner also had a pending drug positive from a race he won as a 2-year-old. The New York Times broke the news of Forte's positive post-race test for meloxicam just ahead of a meeting between his connections and New York stewards, who ultimately disqualified him from his win in the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes.

Forte was placed on the veterinarian's list in Kentucky following his scratch from the Derby, which prohibited him from running in the Preakness. Pletcher told media over the weekend that the colt had completed the required workout before a regulatory veterinarian and post-work drug testing came back clear.

Forte will face stablemate Tapit Trice in the 1 1/2-mile contest, with the son of Tapit breaking from Post 2. Tapit Trice finished seventh in the Kentucky Derby and previously prevailed in a tough victory in the G1 Blue Grass Stakes.

The third betting choice on the morning line will be Brad Cox trainee Angel of Empire, who won the G1 Arkansas Derby en route to a third-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. He has finished off the board just once in his career of seven races thus far.

Six trainers account for the nine entries in this year's Belmont Stakes.

Belmont Stakes Entries

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