Observations on the European Racing Scene turns the spotlight on the best European races of the day, highlighting well-pedigreed horses early in their careers, horses of note returning to action and young runners that achieved notable results in the sales ring. Friday's Observations features the return of a 'TDN Rising Star'.
13.40 Saint-Cloud, Cond, €34,000, 2yo, f, 7 1/2fT BAUHINIA (IRE) (Too Darn Hot {GB}) earned TDN Rising Star status at ParisLongchamp last month and Godolphin's daughter of the G2 Rockfel S.-placed Desert Blossom (Ire) (Shamardal) is kept away from black-type company for now by Andre Fabre. Among her opponents is Ecurie des Charmes's Deauville conditions scorer Opera Mundi (Ire) (Kingman {GB}), a Carlos & Yann Lerner-trained relative of the G1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud winner Plumania (GB) (Anabaa) and G1 Prix Vermeille winner Left Hand (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}).
14.25 Newbury, Cond, £20,000, 2yo, f, 7fT INVERSION (GB) (Frankel {GB}) makes her debut in this Dubai Duty Free Full of Surprises British EBF Fillies' Conditions S. which obviously enjoys a special resonance with the Charlton stable, having won it for three of the last five years including with the subsequent G1 Fillies' Mile heroine Quadrilateral (GB) (Frankel {GB}) and with this Juddmonte homebred's half-sister Lucid Dreamer (GB) (Dansili {GB}). Also successful with L'Ancresse (Ire) (Darshaan {GB}) in 2002, their runner this time is also a half-sister to the recent GI Diana S. winner Whitebeam (GB) (Caravaggio).
16.40 Kempton, Novice, £9,900, 2yo, 7fT MILITARY LEADER (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) is introduced by Charlie Appleby at a track at which he likes to run his smart juveniles and this is a half-brother to this year's G1 Coronation S. third Sounds Of Heaven (GB) (Kingman {GB}). A 1.5million gns Tatts Book 1 purchase, he hails from the spectacularly successful Kilfrush Stud family of Galileo's Hydrangea (Ire), The United States (Ire) and Hermosa (Ire).
17.15 Kempton, Novice, £9,900, 2yo, 7fT AGE OF BAROQUE (FR) (Lope De Vega {Ire}) is another Godolphin-Appleby project starting out on the Polytrack, being a grandson of the G1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp winner Grey Lilas (Ire) (Danehill) from the immediate family of the G1 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches and G1 Prix de Diane heroine Golden Lilac (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). Costing €575,000 at last year's Arqana Deauville August Yearling Sale, the Februray-foaled bay has some experienced peers to overcome including Victorious Racing's 360,000gns Tatts Craven Breeze-Up graduate Military Artist (Munnings) from the Roger Varian stable.
Illinois racing is still struggling to recover from the twin blows of the 2021 closure of Arlington International Racecourse and the inability of the state's two surviving Thoroughbred venues–Hawthorne Race Course and FanDuel Sportsbook & Horse Racing–to follow through with building their proposed racinos that were legalized back in 2019.
Yet Thursday's Illinois Racing Board (IRB) meeting was conducted with a noticeably welcome tone of cautious optimism, as commissioners unanimously approved 2024 race dates against the backdrop of revamped racino construction schedules at both venues that could mean gaming revenue will finally be flowing into the state's Thoroughbred purse accounts by 2025.
Hawthorne, just outside Chicago, was granted a bump upward to 78 programs for 2024, an increase of 10 days over this year's schedule. Instead of closing on Labor Day, next year's meet will extend through mid-October.
FanDuel–which almost everyone who spoke at the meeting still refers to by its nearly century-old name, Fairmount Park–in 2024 will race a similar 62-card template as it did this season.
But the track 280 miles southwest of Hawthorne (just over the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri) will have to share Saturday racing with Hawthorne for the bulk of next year as Hawthorne attempts to build its season around night and weekend racing to avoid horses competing amid loud and intrusive construction of the racino.
Hawthorne for decades has had a decidedly blue-collar reputation. But for the past two years it has been thrust into only-game-in-Chicago leadership status after the devastating exodus of the more opulent and suburban Arlington, which was sold and is being redeveloped as the possible site for a football stadium.
Tim Carey, Hawthorne's president and general manager, did not spare superlatives when he painted a vision of the future for the track that his family has owned since 1909.
“I truly believe that Illinois horse racing is on the precipice of an incredible renaissance, that will not only uplift our local participants, but will re-establish Chicago racing to national prominence,” Carey said, adding that the plan to bring the racino to life would transform Illinois into “one of the most exciting and prosperous markets for horse racing in North America.”
Yet every time Carey referenced the long-awaited racino during the Sept. 21 meeting, he was careful to get it on the record that everything he was promising was predicated on the Illinois Gaming Board signing off on details of the deal in a timely manner.
“They, of course, still have to approve everything that we do–financing, the commencement of construction,” Carey said. “We don't have that yet. We need to provide that to them.”
Fairmount Park/FanDuel Sportsbook | T.D. Thornton
Melissa Helton, the president and general manager at FanDuel/Fairmount, estimated the same 14-month start-to-finish construction phase for her downstate track as Hawthorne's management was outlining.
“We're hoping by the end of the year to have that started,” Helton added. She didn't bring up–nor did commissioners ask her–about how construction would affect the horses at the two-days-a-week 2024 meet (Apr. 16-Nov. 16).
Chris Block, the president of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, expressed confidence in Hawthorne's plan. Perhaps as early as Sept. 22, his organization is poised to sign a two-year deal for racing there.
“The horsemen are going to have to suck it up again and start training at five in the morning to accommodate construction, and [Saturday racing] is going to be a necessity for us when we're under construction,” Block said. “We're going to need to run on Saturday and Sunday, and [Thursday] evening. So the horsemen are ready for that [and] we look forward to that. We're working together, we're going in the same direction with something that is an absolute necessity in this day and age in the Illinois horse racing industry.”
But, Block added, “I really, really, really look forward to 2025, and the operation of that casino, and the rebirth of Illinois horse racing, and a positive direction not only in breeding, but in racing.”
Hawthorne is also pledging to move forward with plans to identify and build a second racino that would eventually be the separate home of commercial Standardbred racing in greater Chicago. That would mean Thoroughbred and harness horses would no longer have to share the same venue, which is what currently keeps both breeds from year-round racing in the state.
Carey said Hawthorne will cease its 2023-24 fall/winter harness meet in time for the track to be converted for Thoroughbred training by Feb. 13.
Hawthorne's 2024 Thoroughbred meet will open Mar. 23 with Saturday and Sunday racing until June 21, when the schedule expands to three days weekly by adding Thursday evenings until the meet closes Oct. 13.
In 2023, Hawthorne originally had Saturdays on the schedule. But the IRB in April approved a request to move those Saturdays to Thursdays, with Hawthorne management advocating at the time that switching to Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays would be a better business decision handle-wise. It also eliminated the Saturday overlap with FanDuel/Fairmount, which traditionally races Tuesday afternoons and Saturday evenings.
The racino construction has changed those business parameters, and Hawthorne's 2024 request to go back to Saturdays came as a surprise to FanDuel/Fairmount.
“Today is the first day I'm hearing that they were going to pick up on Saturday,” Helton said. “The last conversation I had with [Hawthorne racing director] Jim Miller, they were keeping their schedule the same, [and] obviously it will impact how many horses we have on the field.”
Asked for his take prior to the commissioners voting 9-0 to endorse the Saturday overlap, Illinois Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association president Jim Watkins, who trains horses at both venues, said he didn't think the two tracks running on the same day (Hawthorne in the afternoon, Fairmount in the evening) would be a big deal.
“I think it's workable,” Watkins said. “The other option for Fairmount would be to go to a lesser [weekday], and that, of course, would hit us in the pocketbooks [via loss of handle revenue], and we're not in great shape.”
Yet a couple of moments later, Watkins painted a more positive picture of the current meet at FanDuel/Fairmount, which is scheduled through Nov. 18.
“The purse account is in a good position, nearly $1 million to the positive, so the horsemen are not in debt to the track,” Watkins said. “We anticipate, because of funds that have come in, that we will be able to have, for the fourth year in row, a purse increase of hopefully 10-20%.”
Watkins also noted that “we've gone to eight races a day [from the IRB-mandated seven], and if the entries stay as strong, we're anticipating possibly nine or 10 races some days. The horse population, since the closure of Hawthorne on Labor Day, we've gone from 572 to 676 with a few more stables bringing a few more in.”
The first time LNJ Foxwoods' Scotland jumped into the deep waters of Grade 1 competition, the son of Good Magic got schooled pretty good in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course.
Bill Mott, the gelding's Hall of Fame trainer, is hoping for a better result when Scotland runs in Saturday's Grade 1, $1 million betPARX Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing. Scotland, coming off a sixth in the Travers, is the 6-1 fourth choice on the Derby morning line.
“There's not much to say,” Mott said by phone from Saratoga about the Travers. “He went to the lead, got pressured and then backed up. Sometimes you have to go to war to get hardened.”
Before the Travers, Scotland had won four of his first five starts. When he won the Curlin Stakes July 21 at Saratoga, that got him his ticket to the Travers, his first start in a graded stakes. He won the Curlin by 3 1/4 lengths.
Before that, Scotland posted two narrow wins by a head in an allowance and a maiden and a loss by a nose in another allowance.
“He probably thought he won that one,” Mott said of the nose defeat to Tumbarumba in the seven-furlong allowance April 23 at Keeneland.
In the Curlin and the Travers, Scotland showed speed from the bell. He beat Il Miracolo, who is also running in the Pennsylvania Derby, in that race.
Scotland came from off the pace in his two other victories. Mott said it is not imperative that Scotland and regular rider Junior Alvarado have the lead in the Pennsylvania Derby.
“There is other speed in there,” he said. “In the Travers, there was only one horse that had any remarkable speed. It's a bigger field at Parx and someone will probably show some speed.”
Of the 11 horses entered in the Derby, those that have shown early speed in the past include Reincarnate, the 3-1 morning-line favorite for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert; Saudi Crown, the 7-2 second choice for trainer Brad Cox; and Magic Tap, the 5-1 third choice for Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen.
“I don't think we have to prove that we can make the lead here,” Mott said.
Scotland is expected to ship to Parx Friday from Mott's base at Saratoga.
Trainer Larry Demeritte's dream has always been to make it to the Kentucky Derby, and he's now one step closer after 2-year-old colt West Saratoga (Exaggerator) won Saturday's Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes beneath the Twin Spires.
“When I was growing up in the Bahamas, I always watched the Kentucky Derby, and I said, 'In order to win the Kentucky Derby, I need to be in Kentucky,' so I came over here as a very young man,” Demeritte said.
That was 47 years ago.
While the first Saturday in May is still a long way off, the dream feels a lot closer than it did in 2017, when Demeritte was given six months to live.
Diagnosed with multiple myeloma (bone cancer) and a disease called amyloidosis, which causes the body to make abnormal proteins, Demeritte has been undergoing chemotherapy once a month for 6 ½ years.
“You know, I can't focus on what's going on with these frail bodies we have,” said Demeritte. “I said a prayer last week. I said, 'Lord, you always bless everybody, so I got to come over here and I thank you for it. Even if I don't achieve the goal of going to the Kentucky Derby, I can live with that, but that's the desire of my heart.' Because I know that if you do His will, He will bless you with the desire of your heart.
“Life is like bumps in the road. Sometimes you hit some bumps, and sometimes it smooths out for you. That happened today for us, and I'm grateful.”
Of course, Demeritte knows he has to do his part, as well. For example, this colt's purchase for $11,000 at the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling sale is the result of years of practice at selecting horses other people may have overlooked.
He's had has some successes: Lady Glamour was a $1,000 yearling who would earn a graded stakes placing and $126,170 on the track before selling in foal to Not This Time for $115,000; Daring Pegasus was a $3,000 yearling who earned $122,092 in Demeritte's name (and $212,518 overall); She's That Cat was a $12,000 yearling who became stakes placed and earned $101,020 in Demeritte's care (and $334,729 overall).
“I go to the sales every year and we don't buy a lot of horses, but we try to get horses that are gonna be racehorses,” Demeritte said. “My motto is I buy a good horse cheap. I don't buy cheap horses.
“I try to look for horses that I think will stand up to the way I train a horse. And you know, if a horse has more than one defect, because they all have a defect, it's about what you can live with. This horse is really balanced and he had a good throat.”
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Those bargain successes are a big source of pride for the Bahamian native.
“It's so cool, because I always said when I came here, I was the only farm manager who was Black in Kentucky,” said Demeritte. “I like upsetting the cart, because that's this game. You never know who could come up with a good horse, but you have to keep at it. You've got to keep working, so I am really excited for that.”
So, although it took West Saratoga five starts to break his maiden, a few more than Demeritte thought would be necessary, the trainer never felt overly concerned.
He has a lot of experience training 2-year-olds; in the Bahamas, before Demeritte made the move to the United States, he trained the country's champion 2-year-old three years in a row.
“[West Saratoga] would have broken his maiden earlier, but we had the number one post four times in a row,” Demeritte explained. “It's pretty tough going five-eighths, to come out of the one hole, you know. We never wanted to treat him like a sprinter, because he always seemed like he wanted to stretch out, so we didn't want to really pressure him to go really hard from the break.”
Nonetheless, West Saratoga ran three seconds, two at five furlongs and one at seven furlongs, before finally making it to the winner's circle when stretched out to a mile at Ellis Park.
The progression is reminiscent of something Demeritte learned from his father, also a trainer in the Bahamas.
“My dad was a very, very good conditioner of a horse, so I learned that from him: how to feed a horse, and really condition a horse,” said Demeritte. “The only thing is that I understand there's a peak to every horse, and he would always try to get a little more out of every horse. I learned that if you try to get more than that peak, then it slides over the other side. Now, I understand how to know what I have in the horse, and how to keep them at their peak.”
From his base at The Thoroughbred Center in Lexington, Demeritte watched as West Saratoga approached that peak. So even though the colt was the second-longest chance on the board at 12-1 in the Iroquois, Demeritte remained confident.
“I'd been telling [owner] Harry [Veruchi] all week that they'd have to run 1:36 to beat him, because I knew I had him set up to run that kind of time,” Demeritte said.
West Saratoga was in fourth early on, then went five wide before digging in to pull away from his rivals to win by 1 ¾ lengths.
Exaggerator colt West Saratoga wins the Iroquois (G3) under Rafael Bejarano
“I saw the early fractions, but the last part I didn't see, because I was rooting too hard,” he said, laughing. “He's a nice colt, and he's moved forward with every race. … We've had some good horses in the past, but none like this one.”
The next step will be a race like the Breeders' Futurity (G1) at Keeneland on Oct. 7, but West Saratoga is unlikely to make the trip out west for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita Park.
“I would really love to start him at Keeneland,” Demeritte said. “That's the right thing for the horse. A lot of the races that he had short were more like workouts, so I feel like that's the proper step, to run him here at Keeneland then give him a breather.”
Demeritte hasn't yet considered how he might plan a spring schedule for West Saratoga, the star of his nine-horse stable. Right now, he's enjoying the ride.
“Hopefully this ride lasts a long time!” he quipped. “Now, I've run a lot of horses on Derby day, practicing for the Kentucky Derby, so when the day comes I don't have to be nervous!”
