September, 2023 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Secretariat’s Last-Known Daughter Dies At Age 34

The last-known daughter of Secretariat has died at the age of 34, reports the Courier-Journal. Trusted Company's passing was first reported by Patricia McQueen on Facebook Sunday; McQueen is an author/journalist who has been tracking Secretariat's offspring for decades.

Trusted Company last lived at Bright Futures Farm in Cochranton, Penn. The chestnut mare raced one time and produced nine offspring; her best descendent thus far is granddaughter Lady Shatzi, the 2009 Horse of the Year in Peru.

Now, the last-known surviving equine sired by Secretariat is 33-year-old Maritime Traveler.

Pony (Brain) Power: Free-Roaming Herd Learns To Use Touchscreen For Treats

Free-roaming ponies in Portugal learned to recognize letters on a touchscreen with no encouragement from humans, reports The Horse.

Garannos ponies are an endangered breed with minimal contact with humans, but this did not seem to impact their ability to learn human-made symbols and understand how to use human-made devices.

The ponies were able to differentiate between the letters B, O, V, X and Z, said Clara-Lynn Schubert of the Sorbonne University's Faculty of Science and Engineering's Department of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurosciences, in France. Schubert believes that these results could lead to more in-depth cognitive research and improved equine communication.

Schubert and a team of other scientists moved an 8-year-old Garranos stallion and four mares, aged 2 to 13, from where they free-roamed to a testing paddock. The male horse was gelded, but maintained stallion behaviors; the oldest mare had lost vision in one eye years prior to the study.

The researchers placed a 43-inch touchscreen on a portable stand in the paddock, just below the height of the withers. The screen was placed in a three-sided shelter with a chest-high pole the horses could reach over to touch the nearly 6-inch-tall letters on the screen with their noses.

When the horse made the correct choice, a chime sounded and a piece of carrot went down a tube to a bowl in front of the barrier. If the horse chose the wrong letter, a buzzing noise sounded and no treat was delivered.

The horses were trained individually, but where the other horses could see. At first just a black spot was shown on the screen and the horse got a carrot reward when they touched it with their nose. The images then changes to the Roman letters B, O, V, X and Z. The horses were then presented with a choice between the spot and the X, then between two letters, with gradually increasing complexity based on how the letters looked.

The horses, wearing a halter but no lead rope and could leave the area at any time. The horses completed five training sessions of 10 image choices per day; the horses rarely opted to stop before the sessions were over.

Each of the horses was able to discriminate between the X and the black spot; but only the four mares were able to discriminate between all five letters with an average of 80 percent accuracy. The three youngest horses learned more rapidly than the two older horses.

Read more at The Horse.

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Paramount Prince Shoots For Second Leg Of Canadian Triple Crown

On paper, it looks like 8-5 morning line favorite Paramount Prince (Society's Chairman) is the horse to beat in Tuesday's $400,000 Prince of Wales S. at Fort Erie, the second leg of the Canadian Triple Crown. He's perfect around two turns and is coming off a front-running victory in the first leg of the series, the King's Plate. And once again, there doesn't appear to be another horse in the field who can keep this front-runner honest early.

But this race always comes with a handicapping conundrum. How do you pick the winner in a dirt race when not one of the 11 starters has ever won a race over that surface? Most have done their running at Woodbine over the turf courses or the synthetic Tapeta track.

“That's what makes the Canadian Triple Crown so unique,” said Paramount Prince's trainer, Mark Casse. “The first race is on Tapeta, the second is on the dirt and they finish up on the grass in the Breeders' Stakes. We had him all winter at our training center in Ocala and he trained extremely well over the dirt there. I'd be kind of shocked if he didn't handle the dirt. But you never know.”

According to the figures provided by Thoro-Graph, the offspring of Society's Chairman win 16% on the time on dirt and just 13% of the time on synthetic.

Casse has won the Queen's Plate/King's Plate three times, the Prince of Wales four times and the Breeders' Stakes twice. But he has yet to sweep a Canadian Triple Crown, something no horse has done since Wando (Langfuhr) in 2003. The series took a bit of a hit the last two years when the winners of the Queen's Plate skipped the Prince Of Wales. But it looks like the Prince of Wales has rebounded. The 12-horse field is the biggest in 21 years and most of the top Canadian-bred 3-year-old males will be in the race.

Looking to win the Prince of Wales for the fifth time, Casse has every reason to be confident. Paramount Prince, who will be ridden by Patrick Husbands, looks like an improving horse who flourished once sent around two turns. After three straight losses sprinting, he wired the field in the Plate Trial before doing the same in the King's Plate.

“Early on I was very disappointed in him,” Casse said. “This winter I kept saying this is a good horse. The first time I ran him I told (owner) Gary (Barber) that I didn't think he'd get beat. But he disappointed me. He trained great coming into his second race and didn't win either. I think he wants to you to grab him and get into a rhythm. He doesn't do that sprinting.”

Casse has also entered Stayhonor Goodside (Honor Code), who is 10-1 in the morning line and was kept out of the King's Plate.

“I kind of pointed that horse to this race because I thought he has a good dirt pedigree,” Casse said. “But we're all guessing.”

Trainer Michael DePaulo will send out a pair in 4-1 second choice Stanley House (Army Mule) and Cook Kiss (Kantharos). Cook Kiss is one of only two horses in the field that has started on the dirt. He finished second in a dirt allowance in July at Gulfstream. Stanley House was third in the King's Plate, beaten three lengths, and never threatened the winner. Both horses will wear blinkers for the first time.

“We're hoping somebody goes after Paramount Prince at some point. But you never know,” DePaulo said. “Patrick is a cagey rider and might not go to the lead. The Society's Chairmans in general haven't been real big dirt horses that I've seen. But you never know. I put the blinkers on Stanley because he's been a little further than I'd like in most of his races. The other horse, Cook Kiss, he sometimes looks like he's goofing around. I thought blinkers might help. You look at his Ragozin numbers and they're way better than his Beyer numbers because he's always so wide. He ran a mile and three eighths in the Plate.”

Kaukokaipuu (Mr Speaker) went off at 8-1 in the King's Plate only to lose by 37 1/4 lengths. Trainer Ted Holder is willing to try again.

“We haven't missed a beat,” Holder said. “We unfortunately got outdistanced so we ended up on the Alcohol and Gaming Commission's outdistanced vet's list. So, I worked with him, a very slow maintenance work for him to get him off the list. We went over him with the vets to make sure everything was in order and we got the green light, so we are proceeding.”

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Point Given, 2001 Horse Of The Year, Dies At 25

2001 Horse of the Year and winner of both the GI Preakness S. and the GI Belmont S., Point Given (Thunder Gulch), passed away Sept. 11 at 25 years old. In 2017, the champion Thoroughbred became a resident of the Kentucky Horse Park's Hall of Champions, making him the fifth Horse of the Year to occupy the famous barn.

“Point Given was a special horse, loved by all, and a wonderful ambassador for the Kentucky Horse Park,” said Kentucky Horse Park President Lee Carter. “We are saddened by his passing but grateful for the memories created and our time with the Big Red Train.”

Owned and bred by The Thoroughbred Corporation, and trained by Bob Baffert, Point Given won six Grade I races, including two legs of the 2001 Triple Crown. For his efforts, he received Eclipse Awards as Horse of the Year and Champion 3-Year-Old Colt.

“Not only was Point Given a dual classic winning Hall of Famer, but he was also an excellent ambassador for horse racing and the state of Kentucky,” said Hall of Champions Supervisor Rob Willis. “He was a big stallion that was fun to be around. Countless visitors enjoyed being in his presence over the years. It was an honor to care for him during his retirement. His presence will be missed.”

Point Given, affectionately known as the “Big Red Train” due to his 17.1-hand height, earned $3,968,500 with nine wins and three second-place finishes from 13 starts. He was the first horse in history to win four $1 million races in a row, all under jockey Gary Stevens, and he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2010.

“I'm saddened to hear of Point Given's passing,” said Gary Stevens. “He was, to me, the greatest horse to not win the Triple Crown. It was an honor to ride such a phenomenal horse. Rest in peace, PG.”

Point Given retired from racing in September 2001 to stand at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky. In 2013, he was relocated to Calumet Farm in Lexington, Ky., where he stood for five seasons before retiring to the Kentucky Horse Park. He sired over 30 stakes winners, including Canadian Horse of the Year, Sealy Hill.

Like other great Hall of Champions horses, Point Given will be buried at the park's Memorial Walk of Champions alongside past Thoroughbred residents Funny Cide, Go For Gin, Forego, Bold Forbes, John Henry, Alysheba, and Da Hoss. A public memorial service will be held at a future date.

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