After a weekend featuring one of the most important prep races for the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic wrapped up with White Abarrio winning the Whitney Stakes, attention turns to turf racing this upcoming weekend with three Challenge Series preps on the schedule. The 39th running of the Fourstardave Handicap is set for Saturday, Aug.
Month: August 2023
Maltese Falcon Jumps From Maiden To Graded Stakes Winner In La Jolla
For the second day in a row, riding one race on the card was all leading rider Juan Hernandez needed to find his way to the winner's circle again at Del Mar.
Sunday he slipped through on the fence to guide the maiden Maltese Falcon, owned by Red Baron Barn or Rancho Temescal, to a one-length tally in the 82nd edition of the Grade 3 La Jolla Handicap on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course.
The day before he pulled off a similar one-length score on Adare Manor in the Grade 1 Clement L. Hirsch Stakes on the main track with his only mount of the afternoon.
The rider had been set down for three days for a previous riding infraction and was only allowed to ride in designated races this weekend. He made his two efforts pay off in spades with his double stakes victories. He now has won 15 races through the first 11 days of the meet and once more sits atop the riders' standings.
His Sunday tally on the Irish-bred gelding by Caravaggio saw him earn the winner's share of $90,000 from the $151,500 purse of the La Jolla. The winnings pushed Maltese Falcon's total earnings to $135,948 and gave him a record of one win, two seconds and two thirds in seven lifetime starts. He is trained by Leonard Powell.
Maltese Falcon was a lukewarm favorite in the 1 1/16-mile headliner and returned $8.40 to his backers.
Finishing second in the La Jolla was Hronis Racing's Panic Alarm, who had a nose on Muir Hut Stables' Agency.
Earlier on the card, Repole Stable's Pushiness simply outfooted six rivals in the California Thoroughbred Breeders' Association Stakes, scoring by 1 3/4 lengths after leading all the way under rider Umberto Rispoli.
The 2-year-old California-bred filly stakes carried a purse of $125,500 and rewarded the winner with $71,250, meaning Pushiness, a daughter of Kantharos, now has earnings of $107,850 after two wins in two starts.
The quick bay is trained by Michael McCarthy.
Finishing second in the CTBA was Mr.-Mrs. Larry Williams' Grand Slam Smile, who had two and a half lengths on Brown or Thabit's Crazy Hot.
Pushiness, a stout favorite at 3-5, returned $3.20 to her pari-mutuel fans.
Racing will resume at Del Mar on Thursday with a first post of 2 p.m.
JUAN HERNANDEZ (Maltese Falcon, winner) – “(Trainer) Leonard Powell told me this horse has a really good kick at the end. I was really patient with him. My horse he wanted to run around the three-eighths (pole), but I didn't have space to come through, so I decided to stay the longest I can. Finally around the eighth pole I got lucky because the rail opened for me. He was really brave today. He responded to me.”
LEONARD POWELL (Maltese Falcon, winner) – “I didn't give any special instructions to Juan. He's a top class jockey and he watched the videos. I just gave him a few facts about the horse and after that it was all Juan. He put him in a good spot in the pocket and the main thing is that he waited for the opening. And the other main factor is the opening did happen and the horse was good enough.”
FRACTIONS: :23.60 :48.82 1:14.50 1:38.53 1:44.20
The stakes win was third of the meet for rider Hernandez and the second of the session for trainer Powell.
The stakes win was first in the La Jolla for Hernandez, but his 36th overall at Del Mar.
The stakes win was the first in the La Jolla for Powell, but his 10th overall at Del Mar.
The winning owners are Red Baron's Barn and Rancho Temescal.
CTBA Quotes
UMBERTO RISPOLI (Pushiness (winner) – “She's fast; this filly is really fast. She went away from there very quick and I took a little hold of her. But she kept going fast. When we went into the turn, I saw her ears go up, so I knew she was relaxed. These young ones usually want to wait on other horses, but she was a runner all the way. I think she's go farther, too. I'm glad I won it for another Italian (referring to Mike Repole of New York, who races under Repole Stable and owns Pushiness).”
FELIPE RIVERA (Assistant trainer for Michael McCarthy on Pushiness, winner) – “She ran the same way she did at Santa Anita. You break out of the gate and go. She has such nice speed and she was just cruising. No, we don't know (where she will go next). Let's see how she comes out of the race. We'll evaluate and go from there.” (Trainer McCarthy was in Kentucky.)
FRACTIONS: :22.00 :45.25 :57.69 1:04.75
This was the third stakes win of the meet for rider Rispoli, but the first for trainer McCarthy.
The stakes win was the first in the CTBA for the jockey, but his 21st overall at Del Mar.
The stakes win was the first in the CTBA for the trainer, but his sixth overall at Del Mar.
The winning owner is Repole Stable of Mike Repole of New York.
The post Maltese Falcon Jumps From Maiden To Graded Stakes Winner In La Jolla appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
Voss: In Wake Of Maple Leaf Mel Tragedy, There Are No Easy Answers
In the aftermath of tragedy, a writer's job is to make sense of it all for our readers. Bring new information, bring schooled perspective, bring some poetry that will console them in times of uncertainty.
But after the stretch run of Saturday's Test Stakes at Saratoga, what can you say?
I've had the misfortune to be in the press box at several racetracks when a horse has suffered a fatal injury. It never leaves me, but often the trauma is second-hand. I can see the way an ambulance is angled to block the public's view, and dread the reason why. I'll watch someone carrying an empty halter, sprinting on foot up the track. None of those days were as awful as this one.
I don't know how much people saw at home, where the race was being broadcast on FOX Sports, but I imagine it was enough. For thousands of people who were frontside at the track, the scene was so much worse. I've never heard a crowd move so quickly from cheering, to a collective gasp, to stunned silence. I looked away as soon as Maple Leaf Mel got up and I could see her front fetlock wasn't at the angle it should have been, but hundreds of people standing in the winner's circle couldn't turn away. They saw her leg. They saw her trainer in inconsolable tears. Despite the tarps, some saw her die.
I imagine breakdowns are upsetting to anyone, but when you've sat on a horse, or laid on the grass hand-grazing one, or spent your whole life reading their eyes and ears, I think it's harder. Something will look familiar about that horse, even if you don't know them, because it will remind you of the horse you love. It will be easier to imagine your horse standing in their place. I'll never know how grooms, exercise riders, trainers like Melanie Giddings, ever recover from seeing a horse they actually do know struggle in such foreign, terrible situations, mere minutes after going to the post slick and happy.
Many fractures are repairable with surgery, but it was clear from her movement as the gray filly stood up that this wasn't just a serious fracture, but there were also likely failures in the soft tissue supporting the delicate fetlock bones. In those situations, there's almost never anything they can do to fix it. The only question is how long the horse must suffer before euthanasia. It was unsettling to know she died right in front of us, but to van her back to the barn would have accomplished nothing but prolonging her pain, and that would have been an injustice to her.
I can see now why people cling so fiercely to the bad step myth. It really did look like Mel just missed straightening her pastern fully before her foot came back down to the dirt – the same way my dressage horse does now and then as we trot around the schooling arena or as he bumbles around in his paddock – and that she just had too much momentum behind her to straighten up again. We know, from academic research, that this is almost never the reason breakdowns happen, but I don't also know anyone who would suggest that Mel's trainer is someone who would push a horse, or ignore any sign of trouble, or take liberties with substances. Not with any horse, and especially not with this one.
So what do you say? There are people who were at the races Saturday who may never go back. There are people who may take weeks or days of flinching through stretch runs before they decide they've had enough. I'm not sure I can blame them.
You could say that horses suffer injuries like this in other sports and they do, although those incidents are not nearly so well-documented or broadly-observed. You could point out that they also find ways to have accidents in comfortable, safe stalls, or running free in a paddock or on a plain out West. I don't think that response really works anymore, because the people at Saratoga on Saturday only saw this horse, doing this job, suffer a traumatic accident, so other possibilities probably feel pretty remote. And that doesn't really absolve the sport from its responsibility to try to stop these things from happening.
You could say that she died doing the thing she loved most in the world, and that's true. But I don't think horses think about life and death the way we do. She hadn't contemplated the ways in which she would and wouldn't be OK leaving this world. Like most animals, horses live in the moment. Most of those moments were good ones, but the procession of them ended too soon.
You could say it's just part of the game. The race card went on after Mel died. The paddock bell tolled just minutes after the ambulance carried her body off the track, sounding like a funeral knell, but really it was telling us the horses for the next race were in the paddock. Horses went to the track this morning like always, although the people seemed a little quieter than usual. But the question that will always follow that is, should it be part of the game? And if you can't have one without the other, should you have both?
I've spoken with so many people in the last year who have been in the racing business their whole lives and who, from one vantage point or another, fight to do the right things by horses. They're tired. They're jaded. They're getting tired of answering questions from their barista or taxi driver about horse deaths. They're telling me they're not sure how much longer they can keep defending the sport, and starting to wrestle with their own moral responsibility in continuing on.
More and more, I don't know what to say to them.
The post Voss: In Wake Of Maple Leaf Mel Tragedy, There Are No Easy Answers appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
Former Classics Contender Red Route One Makes The Grade In West Virginia Derby
Red Route One, who had been knocking heads with the top 3-year-olds all year without a graded stakes victory, rallied strongly from fifth with an eighth of a mile remaining and drew away to win the $500,000 West Virginia Derby (G3) Sunday at Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack and Resort.
The 3-year-old Gun Runner colt gave trainer Steve Asmussen his sixth win in the 1 1/8-mile West Virginia Derby. It marked the third victory in the race for owner Winchell Thoroughbreds, all of them with Asmussen as trainer.
Ridden by Cristian Torres, who was aboard Red Route One when he finished second in the Rebel Stakes (G2) at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas, the chestnut colt was never worse than seventh in a race with a fairly quick pace set by One in Vermillion, who fired to the front and was unchallenged for more than a half-mile. West Coast Cowboy engaged the leader heading in the far turn and the pair battle to the wire—only to be engulfed by Red Route One approaching the finish.
Red Route One won by three lengths, while West Coast Cowboy finished second, a head in front of One in Vermillion. Red Route One paid $9.80 to win and completed the distance in 1:49.49.
The Mountaineer main track, which was sloppy to begin the program and switched to good for the sixth race, was clearly favoring horses on or near the lead. Assistant trainer Darren Fleming, who has saddled all six of Asmussen's West Virginia Derby winners, said the surface was a concern.
“We were apprehensive the way the track was playing,” Fleming said. “He ended up handling it very well. “Mountaineer has always been great for us, and the colt had been doing very well coming into the race.”
In his previous start, Red Route One finished a distant eighth in the Grade I Belmont Stakes at one-and-one-half miles after a fourth-place finish in the Grade I Preakness Stakes. Fleming said the distance and the fact “it wasn't his day” led to a lackluster
performance.
Red Route One, who now has three wins, two seconds and a third in 12 starts, became a millionaire with his Mountaineer victory. His earnings now stand at $1,045,125.
Mountaineer this year moved the West Virginia Derby to Sunday from Saturday this year with a twilight post of 5 p.m. (ET). The total pari-mutuel handle for nine races was $2.53 million, up 12% from $2.26 million in 2022 and the highest number since 2015.
The post Former Classics Contender Red Route One Makes The Grade In West Virginia Derby appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
