June, 2023 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Taiba To Miss Met Mile, Point Towards Del Mar

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert said Zedan Racing Stables' MGISW and 'TDN Rising Star' Taiba (Gun Runner) will skip Saturday's GI Hill 'n' Dale Metropolitan Handicap, at Belmont Park.

Taiba worked seven-furlongs in 1:27.40 Friday at Santa Anita in what was to be his final prep for the one-turn mile. He has not raced since an eighth-place effort in the G1 Saudi Cup February 25 at King Abdulaziz Racecourse.

“His works have been good, but not like I'd like to see them. I just don't think he's ready for something like that yet,” said Baffert. “I'm going to wait and run him at Del Mar. He's doing well, but not well enough for the Met Mile. To run in the Met Mile, you have to bring your 'A' game and I don't think he's quite there yet.”

“I don't know if he's ready to go a mile against top horses,” Baffert conceded. “He's not quite back to where he was. That's a long way to go to run against Cody's Wish.”

SF Racing, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stables, Robert Masterson, Stonestreet Stables, Jay A. Schoenfarber, Waves Edge Capital and Catherine Donovan's GI Preakness S. winner National Treasure (Quality Road) is slated to breeze Monday in preparation for the GI Belmont S.

Baffert said he is hopeful that National Treasure will appreciate the added ground in the 1 1/2-mile “Test of the Champion.”

“You never know until they do it,” Baffert said. “He handled the Preakness distance and it wasn't a problem for him. We're all in the same boat. None of them probably want to go that far, but if they don't go too fast, they can do it.

“I just want him to show up like he did at Pimlico,” added Baffert. “He's never really run a bad race. All his races have been competitive. He's a pretty consistent horse. He's happy and he'll breeze tomorrow and hopefully everything goes well.”

Zedan Racing Stables' graded-stakes placed Arabian Lion (Justify), a winner of the Sir Barton S. last time out, was initially under consideration for Saturday's Belmont S. but Baffert decided to point him to the GI Woody Stephens instead.

“On the turnback, sometimes they run well. We'll send him back to two turns again after that,” Baffert said.

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Allamericanbeauty Seeks Breakthrough Stakes Victory In Wonder Again

Courtlandt Farms' Allamericanbeauty will look to parlay a strong last-out allowance victory at Keeneland into graded stakes company in Thursday's 200,000 Wonder Again (G2), a nine-furlong inner turf test for sophomore fillies, at Belmont Park.

The top-three finishers of the Wonder Again will receive an automatic invitation to the $500,000 Fasig-Tipton Belmont Oaks Invitational (G1) on July 8 at Belmont.

Trained by Hall of Famer Shug McGaughey, the daughter of Into Mischief took a first-level allowance going the Wonder Again distance on April 14 at Keeneland to notch her first score again winners in her second attempt.

Ridden by Frankie Dettori, the talented bay emerged from the outermost post 11 and settled in 10th behind a swift tempo set by Safeen, who exited that effort to win the Horseshoe Indianapolis Handicap in her next effort. Dettori swung Allamericanbeauty three-wide in the turn to take dead aim at the pacesetter and displayed an impressive turn of foot and take a half-length advantage in the shadow of the wire. She completed the course in 1:48.50 and garnered a career-best 76 Beyer Speed Figure.

“Frankie's ridden for me a couple of times and when you've got a guy like him around, you sure like to use him,” said McGaughey. “I liked the way she finished and she showed she's growing up and growing into herself a bit. This is another big step forward for her, but if you're going to compete in these kinds of races you've got to [try] running in them.”

Allamericanbeauty debuted sprinting on the dirt in December and finished a distant fourth, but relished a switch in surface in her next start and graduated by a neck in a 1 1/16-mile turf maiden in January at Gulfstream Park. She followed with her stakes debut in the Florida Oaks (G3) over the same distance and course and finished a closing fifth after closing from 10th-of-11.

“When I was getting to run her as a 2-year-old in the fall, she worked a half-mile [on the dirt] good, but she would never gallop out,” said McGaughey. “When I ran her, I really wasn't ready to run her, but we were getting ready to get out of here, so I said 'Why don't we?' She gave me that same impression [as the work] – she just ran OK. I decided to try her on the grass and it's worked so far.”

Out of the winning Lemon Drop Kid mare Apologize, Allamericanbeauty was a $700,000 purchase from breeder Mt. Brilliant Farm at the 2021 Keeneland September yearling sale. Apologize is a full sister to multiple graded stakes winner Aurelia's Belle, along with the McGaughey-trained dual winner Dripping Gold.

Tyler Gaffalione has the call from post 8.

Fellow Hall of Fame conditioner Todd Pletcher sends out the undefeated Spansive [post 5, Joel Rosario], who makes her stakes debut off a 1 1/4-length win over returning rival Juniper's Moon in a 1 1/16-mile optional claiming tilt on May 13 at Belmont.

The Repole Stable-owned daughter of Karakontie has posted both her career wins in near identical fashion, setting the pace and persevering to the wire to win by the same margin in each outing. She earned an 84 Beyer for her debut maiden coup traveling one-mile over the Gulfstream Park green in April and an 85 for her latest trip to the winner's circle.

“She's off to a good start,” Pletcher said. “It's hard to win your first two races and she looks like a filly that continues to improve.”

A $145,000 purchase at last year's OBS June 2-year-olds and horses of racing age sale, Spansive is out of the unraced Bernardini mare Fleur de Cerise. Her second dam, Cotton Blossom, was a multiple graded stakes winner for Pletcher and won the 2007 Acorn (G1) at Belmont.

Four-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown goes three deep in pursuit of his fifth Wonder Again triumph with Revalita [post 4, Jose Ortiz], Venencia [post 1, Irad Ortiz Jr.], and Prerequisite [post 7, Flavien Prat].

Wise Racing's French-bred graded stakes-placed Revalita arrives from a game runner-up finish to Heavenly Sunday in the Edgewood (G2) on May 5 at Churchill Downs. The bay daughter of Recoletos broke her maiden and won an allowance at Le Lion D'angers in France before coming stateside and finishing fourth in the Herecomesthebride (G3) at Gulfstream in her first start for Brown.

Bradley Thoroughbreds, Laura Leigh Stable, Belmar Racing and Breeding, Cambron Equine and Team Hanley's Venencia, another French-bred daughter of Recoletos, makes her second American start after finishing third in a Keeneland allowance on April 27. The bay filly was a winner on debut in November at Chantilly in her native France.

First Row Partners and Team Hanley's Prerequisite makes her stakes debut and first start against winners after a second-out graduation going nine furlongs on May 7 at Belmont. The runner-up in that race, Highland Grace, graduated impressively in her next outing on Saturday at Belmont.

Prerequisite, a daughter of Upstart, was a $350,000 purchase at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale and is out of the Smart Strike mare Etsu, a full sister to the Brown-trained multiple stakes-winner Homeland Security.

Michael J. Ryan's Irish homebred Be Your Best [post 3, Manny Franco] looks to return to winning ways in her second outing off a seven-month layoff for trainer Horacio De Paz.

The daughter of Muhaarar was last seen finishing an even seventh in the one-mile Appalachian (G2) on April 8 at Keeneland where she raced in fourth through the first three points of call before fading in the turn and finishing 5 3/4 lengths behind the victorious Papilio.

The bay filly posted a productive juvenile campaign in which she won her first two outings that included a stakes victory in the P.G. Johnson in September at Saratoga. She closed out her season with a third-place finish in the Miss Grillo (G2) at Belmont at the Big A and an off-the-board effort in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1) in November at Keeneland.

SJB Stable's Thirty Thou Kelvin [post 6, Feargal Lynch] makes her third start since being transferred to trainer John Terranova in her fourth attempt at a stakes conquest. The bay daughter of Bolt d'Oro won two races in four starts for previous conditioner Jorge Abreu and made her first start for Terranova when third in the 1 1/16-mile Bourbonette Oaks over synthetic on March 25 at Turfway Park. She followed with her latest effort when a closing fifth in the one-mile Hilltop on May 19 at Pimlico Race Course.

Completing the field is Team Spoor's graded stakes-placed Juniper's Moon [post 2, Javier Castellano]. The daughter of Galileo, out of the multiple graded stakes-winning multimillionaire I'm a Chatterbox, finished third in the Florida Oaks (G3) in March at Tampa Bay Downs and enters from a runner-up effort to Spansive in the aforementioned optional claimer on May 13 for trainer Tony Dutrow.

The Wonder Again is slated as Race 9 on Friday's 10-race card, which co-features the $150,000 Jersey Girl in Race 8. First post is 3:05 p.m. Eastern.

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The Week In Review: Earle Mack Has The Answer, And We Must Listen To Him

Earle Mack is right. This industry, which is mired in a crisis, can no longer afford to ignore the most obvious solution to its problems, which are synthetic tracks.

Mack wrote just that in an Op/Ed that appeared in this publication last week. If you haven't read it yet, please do so now. It is powerful, articulate and well-reasoned and was written by someone whose credentials demand that we respect his opinion. He is a horse owner, a breeder, a former U.S. Ambassador to Finland and a smart and successful businessman who clearly loves this sport and does not want it to be pushed to the edge of extinction. It may be the most important story you will read all year.

“The responsibility lies with horse racing's governing bodies, influential race track directors, and all key stakeholders to rally behind a transition to synthetic tracks,” he wrote. “Their public endorsement and commitment to safer racing conditions would signal the beginning of the transformative change our industry desperately needs.”

The 12 deaths at Churchill Downs have created a dangerous firestorm unlike anything racing has ever encountered. We only thought the problems at Santa Anita in 2019 were bad. That was an ugly story but it was largely a California story that didn't resonate with the national media. This time, we are talking about the most famous track in the country, the GI Kentucky Derby and two deaths on the Derby undercard.

This is a story that has been widely covered by every major media outlet in the country and has led to a public debate: is our sport inhumane?

How do we answer that? The public no longer wants to hear about how loved these horses are by their owners, trainers, and grooms or that they are pampered and get the very best care possible and that they were born to run. What they want is for the deaths to greatly decrease if not stop all together.

To their credit, Churchill Downs, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) and the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission have stepped up and announced that changes are being made. Theirs is a genuine and concerted effort to do the right thing and to get to the bottom of what has been going on at Churchill. Moving the remainder of the Churchill meet to Ellis Park was a drastic step. Considering the widespread opinion that there is nothing wrong with the Churchill track surface, you can argue that it was overkill, but shutting Churchill down was a victory in the public relations battle, and that matters. The days when the sport shrugged this off and we were told “it's part of the game” are, thankfully, over.

But it's not enough. This sport must do absolutely everything it can to alleviate the problem. And it's not. And it won't until synthetic tracks replace dirt tracks throughout the sport.

Yes, deaths happen on synthetic surfaces, too. But they are much safer than dirt tracks. According to the Jockey Club's Equine Injury Database, there were 1.44 deaths per 1,000 starters in dirt races in the U.S. in 2022. On synthetic tracks, the number was 0.41. That means a horse is 3 1/2 times more likely to die in a dirt race that in a synthetic surface race. Dirt tracks are the most dangerous tracks we have and yet they remain the sport's core product.

Noting those figures, Mack wrote, “…the stark and troubling statistics demand a shift in thinking. We must abandon old norms and embrace new practices that prioritize the safety and welfare of our noble equine athletes. The benefits of synthetic tracks are not mere conjecture; they are a proven truth.”

Yet synthetic surface races remain a minor part of racing and Keeneland, Santa Anita and Del Mar gave up on them too quickly, going back to dirt after a short period of time when they were in place at all three tracks.

Mack calls on Churchill Downs to lead the way. Not only does this story center around deaths at that track but the company owns the sport's most important asset, the Kentucky Derby. Mack reasons that if Churchill takes the lead and converts to a synthetic surface, that will create the much-needed domino effect. How about we go a few steps further? The three Triple Crown tracks should make a joint announcement that going forward the Derby, the GI Preakness S. and the GI Belmont S. will be contested on synthetic tracks starting next year. The Breeders' Cup should announce that starting with the 2025 Breeders' Cup only racetracks that have synthetic tracks will be considered as host sites.

It is understood that this would cause a huge change in the economics of the breeding industry, which is a powerful and influential component. There are stallions out there that are worth tens of millions of dollars and that is because they produce top quality dirt horses–ones capable of winning races like the Derby and the GI Breeders' Cup Classic. Should that strength be taken away by ending dirt racing, their value could be greatly compromised. That will never be an easy thing for the top stud farms to accept. But they can adjust. It will take time, but a new set of stallions capable of producing horses that win at the highest levels on synthetic tracks and, for that matter, turf courses, will take over.

And the farms, like every other section of the sport, need to look at what the alternative is.

“If we fail to take decisive action, the Triple Crown and horse racing itself may soon be mourned as relics of the past.,” Mack wrote. “Animal rights groups, emboldened by each equine death, are gaining traction in their campaign against horse racing. The calls to ban or severely restrict the sport grow louder with each life lost. We cannot afford to lose this race for the soul and survival of our sport.”

Is the sport sure to continue? For maybe the first time in its proud history, we really don't know the answer. Where will racing be in, say, 25 years? Will it have gone the way of dog racing? It won't if we do the right things now, before it is too late. The sport must become safer and that must happen now. The best way to do that is to end dirt racing.

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Songline Scores Second Straight Yasuda Kinen Win, Earns Breeders’ Cup Mile Berth

Sunday Racing Co.'s Songline became the third horse, following Yamanin Zephyr (1992-'93) and Vodka (2008-'09), to score a second straight Yasuda Kinen victory when capturing this year's $2,968,000 race Sunday at Tokyo Racecourse.

With Sunday's win, Songline earned an automatic starting position and fees paid in the $2-million FanDuel Breeders' Cup Mile (G1) in November at Santa Anita through the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Win and You're In.

Including her Victoria Mile (G1) triumph by a head over 2022 winner Sodashi for trainer Toru Hayashi and jockey Keita Tosaki just three weeks earlier, the Kizuna mare notched her third top-level triumph and fifth graded win, and she is 5-1-0 out of seven one-mile races at Tokyo. For her Victoria Mile triumph, she also earned an automatic, fees-paid berth in the $2-million Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1).

Breaking from the farthest stall in the 18-horse field Sunday, fourth choice Songline camped three-wide and in around eighth to ninth from pacesetter Win Carnelian, who led the field with fifth pick Jack d'Or on his tail all the way into the homestretch. With the second-fastest final three-eighths speed, the defending winner steadily climbed uphill, powered home seizing the lead easily from Serifos in the final sixteenth, and pulled away in the final strides for a 1 1/4-length win.

Time for the one-mile trip was 1:31.4 on good to firm turf.

‟I was able to gallop her last week and felt that her form had improved, so I had every confidence in her today,” said Tosaki, who won the 2011 Yasuda Kinen with Real Impact. “The position we found was ideal, she responded beautifully and demonstrated her strong turn of foot and speed today. To score two Grade 1 wins in a row is just incredible and I feel she is still steadily progressing.”

Third choice and 2022 Mile Championship (G1) victor Serifos settled around fifth on the rails after a good break, launched a strong stretch drive after finding a narrow opening 300 meters out and overtook Jack d'Or for the lead, but was soon outrun by the winner on his outside while holding off the fast-closing favorite Schnell Meister to finish second.

Last year's runner-up, Schnell Meister, under Christophe Lemaire, cruised down the backstretch unhurried in third from last. The German-bred bay responded well with the fastest late speed, and mowed down his tired rivals one by one but failed catch the front-runners while digging in for a head third and warding off Gaia Force by a neck..

The Yasuda Kinen was billed as a showdown between Songline and Kaneko Makoto Holdings Co.'s homebred Sodashi, but the latter, a striking white Thoroughbred, finished a nonthreatening seventh after tracking the leaders in third early. She was in contention 150 meters out, then faded.

Songline was produced by Luminous Parade, by Symboli Kris S, and was bred by Northern Farm

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