December, 2023 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Turfway/Claiborne Farm Collaboration ‘Make Your Mare’ Series Continues With My Charmer

Augustin Stable's Ellis Park Turf Stakes winner Mouffy is set to make her debut at Turfway Park, where she'll face nine fillies and mares in next Saturday's 35th running of the $125,000 My Charmer Stakes.

Run at 1 1/16 miles, the My Charmer Stakes will go as Race 7 on the nine-race program with a post time of 8:55 p.m. (ET). First post is 5:55 p.m.

In collaboration with Claiborne Farm, the My Charmer Stakes is the second of a three-race 'Make Your Mare' series, which will award fillies and mares credits toward a future stallion paring upon their retirement. The Top 3 finishers will receive $10,000, $5,000 and $2,500 in credits, applicable until the end of the 2025 breeding season. Claiborne Credits are exclusive to the top 3 and can be transferred with the horse in case of an ownership change.

The ultra-consistent Mouffy recorded her lone stakes victory two starts ago when she defeated eight rivals in the Ellis Park Turf Stakes. Six weeks later trainer Jonathan Thomas shipped the daughter of Uncle Mo to Canada where she was made the 2-1 favorite in the Ontario Matron Stakes (G3) at Woodbine but finished fourth, beaten just a length, to Millie Girl. Jockey Tyler Conner will ride the four-time winner from post No. 8.

Another accomplished filly that entered the My Charmer is Scott Mawaka's Grade 3-placed Catiche. Trained by Mike Stidham, Catiche ran one of her best efforts on her 10-race resume at Turfway Park when she finished in a dead heat for second in the 2022 Bourbonette Oaks behind longshot winner Candy Raid. Jockey Gerardo Corrales will pilot Catiche in the My Charmer out of post 3.

The first race in the Make Your Mare series was the Holiday Inaugural, won by favorite Marissa's Lady, a multiple stakes-winning daughter of Violence. B G Warrior was second, and Bling was third.

Following is the complete field for the My Charmer in order of post position (with jockey, trainer):

1. Amazon Queen (Declan Cannon, Arnaud Delacour)

2. Malloy (Orlando Mojica, Wayne Catalano)

3. Catiche (Corrales, Stidham)

4. Community Adjusted (Abel Cedillo, Arnaud Delacour)

5. Tap Dancing Lady (Joe Ramos, Hugo Andrade)

6. Thisnameisokay (Joe Rocco Jr., Steve Cooper)

7. Lexa (Luan Machado, Whit Beckman)

8. Mouffy (Conner, Thomas)

9. Traffic Song (Colby Hernandez, Sarah Hamilton)

10. Bali Belle (Gavin Ashton, Rusty Arnold)

For more information about the Turfway Park Holiday Meet, visit www.turfway.com. For more information about Claiborne Farm, visit https://claibornefarm.com.

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Inoperable Cancer Claims Old Friends Resident Sun King

Old Friends, the Thoroughbred retirement facility in Georgetown, Ky., is saddened to report that Sun King, a multiple graded stakes winning millionaire, was euthanized at Rood and Riddle on Saturday, Dec. 2, due to inoperable cancer. He was 21.

The dark bay stallion has been at Old Friends for six years thanks to his owner, Tracy Farmer, a longtime supporter of the farm.

Foaled by Cambridge Farm and James Daniel Conway, Sun King, who was by 1999 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, Charismatic, out of the Clever Trick mare, Clever But Costly, was foaled in Kentucky on Jan. 31, 2002.

Trained by Nick Zito his entire career for owner Tracy Farmer, Sun King began his racing career as a 2-year old in 2004. Farmer purchased Sun King for $400,000 at the Keeneland 2003 January Horses of All Ages Sale.

Sun King won his first race in his second start in a maiden special weight race at Belmont Park on Sept. 17. He was moved up into stakes company for his next two races, and finished third in both, the Champagne Stakes (G1) at Belmont Park and the Bessemer Trust Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) at Lone Star.

In 2005 as a 3-year old, he opened his season with two wins, an allowance race at Gulfstream Park, and the Tampa Bay Derby (G3) at Tampa Bay Downs for his first graded stakes victory.

He did participate in two of the Classics that year, finishing 15th in the Kentucky Derby (G1) and fourth in the Preakness Stakes (G1) at Pimlico.

Following those races, he won the Leonard Richards Stakes (G3) at Delaware Park, and the Pennsylvania Derby (G2) at Philadelphia Park. He also finished second in the Haskell Invitational Handicap (G1) at Monmouth Park, and third in the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1) at Belmont Park. He ended the year with a ninth-place finish in the Breeders' Cup Classic Powered by Dodge (G1) at Belmont Park.

In 2006, in his third start as a 4-year old, he won the Commonwealth Breeders' Cup Stakes (G2) at Keeneland. He then scored three consecutive second-place finishes, the first two at Belmont Park, in the Metropolitan Handicap (G1) and the Albert the Great Stakes (Black Type), followed by the Whitney Handicap (G1) at Saratoga.

In his next race, he was third in the Woodward Stakes (G1) at Saratoga, and then closed out his year with a 10th in the Breeders' Cup Classic Powered by Dodge (G1) at Churchill Downs.

He returned in 2007 as a 5-year old, but did not win any races. However, he did finish second in the Westchester Handicap (G3) at Belmont Park, the Woodward Stakes (G1) at Saratoga, and the Ack Ack Handicap (G3) at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3, which was the final race of his career.

Sun King retired with six wins, seven seconds, five thirds, and $2,240,008 in earnings in 28 career starts.

He began his stud career at Darby Dan in Kentucky in 2008, and moved to Elite Thoroughbreds in Louisiana in 2013. Then, in 2016, he was pensioned due to declining infertility and sent to Farmer's farm.

In 2017, Farmer decided to donate Sun King to Old Friends. He arrived at the farm on Feb. 25, 2017.

“Sun King was one of our best retirees,” said Michael Blowen, President and founder of Old Friends. “A great son of Charismatic, he attracted many fans, including Nick and Kim Zito who came by often to see him. All of our retirees are missed when they die, but no one will be missed more than the King.”

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Equinox, the Champion Who Turned Races into Processions

Crossing the line as Equinox sauntered home in the Japan Cup, Christophe Lemaire gave a little shake of his head and beamed as he tried unconvincingly to pat the horse's neck. Lemaire's disbelief was such that he went floppy with delight.

Championship races are not meant to be processions. Even legendary horses aren't supposed to be so superior to their contemporaries. While others bobbed and heaved with effort, Equinox arrived at the front in his races on the bridle, with Lemaire perched as if for a portrait painter. Then he would slip into a groove of precise, majestic speed, and kill the race.

Superiority on the scale Equinox displayed it contradicts everything we think about how competitive elite breeding and racing are. A Japan Cup or Dubai Sheema Classic is hard enough to win by half a length. But his wins in those races were outlandish.

Equinox's final outing before he was retired to stud bore a distinctly Japanese flavour: 85,000 spectators in Tokyo, a rolling surf of noise from the gate to the line, the local rituals of reverence and respect. But it would be wrong to call him merely Big in Japan. The safest measure of his status as the world's best racehorse was on the one occasion he left his country – then left everything else in the Sheema Classic for dead.

If you could take one Equinox victory to a desert island it would surely be the one in Dubai, which had the racecourse commentator calling him “the titan of the world's Turf.” The Sheema Classic was the highest expression of his brilliance. It added global fame to his notoriety in Japan and lustre to his stallion career in a country quietly building a bloodstock empire.

In Cheltenham Festival season, in March, the TV screen lit up with a performance of astonishing beauty. The Meydan replays never lose their power. On the turn into the stretch we see Equinox up the ante, and Mostahdaf, who has him in his sights, starts to run through tar. While he bobs and heaves under his jockey's urgings, Equinox merely organises himself into a smooth surge that takes him away from a top-class field.

The kind of horse that makes you want to tell non-racing
friends – stop what you're doing, and just watch this.

When a genius comes along in other sports we say they are playing a different game to everyone else. Equinox ran in different races – his own – much as Constitution Hill does in National Hunt racing. In the Sheema Classic, Lemaire merely nudges him down the reins into his full imperious velocity. Every sheikh in the house must have winced with envy.

Discarded in his wake that night were the subsequent Arc runner-up Westover, the Grosser Preis von Baden winner Zagrey and of course Mostahdaf, who won the Prince of Wales's Stakes and Juddmonte International. From that moment Equinox's admirers (and his owners) were on safe ground. Yes, the desire took hold to see him tackle the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, and confront Ace Impact; but that became a dream match-up only after Ace Impact had won so impressively, not before.

Nobody dodged Equinox on his final appearance. For a moment the doomed optimism of the 2022 Dubai Turf winner Panthalassa in blasting 10 lengths clear at the final turn made the race look like a test for Japan's champion. Nor was he alone in possessing a top-class cv. The Japanese fillies' Triple Crown winner Liberty Island made the first move on Panthalassa but Equinox swept past her as if she were a pensioner hurrying for a bus.

Even Lemaire was taken aback – hence the shake of the head as they pulled up. “When we got into the final straight, the horse just reacted to the point that even I was surprised,” he said. “His acceleration was incredible. He's truly a super horse, smart, powerful and gentle, like a pony.”

That nobility shines through. His dark bay coat and white blaze are other distinguishing features, along with his work ethic, his eagerness to quicken. It's this desire that most fascinates me about the best horses. They want to do it – though Equinox 'did it' so easily he left you bemused by the apparent lack of exertion.

Now his owners have decided he's exerted himself enough and will join his sire Kitasan Black at Shadai Stallion Station. It's our loss, but he is four years old, and has won six top races in a row.

Boxing reporters used to like tracking down the first or last fighter to beat a great champion, because the search often led to a nightclub doorman or shelf stacker. Do Deuce has the distinction of being the last horse to beat Equinox, in the 2022 Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby). Since then Do Deuce has finished 19^th in the Arc (42 lengths behind Alpinista) and eight and a half and five and three quarter lengths behind Equinox in the Tenno Shun (Autumn) and Japan Cup respectively (his record since his neck win over Equinox is one victory in five).

Do Deuce was merely good. Equinox turned out to be supernatural: not only big in Japan but monstrous in Meydan: the kind of horse that makes you want to tell non-racing friends – stop what you're doing, and just watch this.

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Claiming Crown Double: Sharp-Trained Money Supply, Runway Magic Sparkle In Jewel, Emerald

With his arsenal of six entries whittled down to five after races were taken off the turf for Saturday's Claiming Crown card, trainer Joe Sharp scored the natural double winning the $150,000 Emerald with Runway Magic and the $200,000 Jewel with Money Supply.

“When you claim one, you always hope they develop into the kind of horse that can be competitive on this day,” Sharp said. “It is special to win back-to-back races on Claiming Crown day, especially for my team. We all work hard every day. This is a lot of fun and it's great to be able to share it with them. Keep him healthy and we will target the same race next year.”

Jordan Wycoff's Money Supply settled in seventh of nine older males early on and rallied to split foes late winning the Claiming Crown Jewel by 1¾ lengths over Luigi's Spirit. Run at 1 1/8 miles over a sloppy (sealed) track, he stopped the clock at 1:52.05 under jockey Jareth Loveberry.

“After he won the starter for us at Churchill (Sept. 27) Jordan (owner Wycoff) reminded me that he was eligible for the Claiming Crown,” Sharp said of Money Supply, a 4-year-old Practical Joke colt. “And at that point we started to target it. His off track form hadn't been the best in the past, so we were a little nervous. We went back and watched his replays, found some excuses and decided to give it a go.”

Claimed from Chad Brown in August at Saratoga for $35,000, Money Supply rattled off two wins and one place-finish in Sharp's care. Prior to his victory in the Jewel, Money Supply had never won on an off track in five attempts, but with Saturday's tally, he now boasts an overall 14-5-2-2 lifetime record along with a $366,532 bankroll.

Mike Diliberto's 5-2 morning line was a bullseye as the bettors agreed and the Sharp-trainee paid $7.60.

In the race prior, Baron Racing Stables' Runway Magic made his first run out of Sharp's barn a winning one in the Claiming Crown Emerald.

With blinkers back on, Runway Magic employed the opposite tactics of Money Supply, pressing the front-running Tatanka through the opening call off the 1 1/16 miles affair before taking over at the quarter pole and grinding down the sloppy (sealed) homestretch to win by 1½ lengths over the 12-1 longshot Duke of Carthania.

Scheduled to be run on the turf, heavy rains demanded the Emerald be moved to the main track. Fair Grounds newcomer Jaime Torres guided Runway Magic across the finish line in 1:44.71.

“I just made a move because Joe Sharp told me he doesn't have a good kick,” Torres said. “He is just one-paced so I made a move early and thought let's see what happens at the end. He kept going.”

Torres now has two wins for Sharp at the 2023-2024 Fair Grounds meet, which is the rider's first year in the colony.

“We brought Jaime down here to ride first call,” Sharp said. “I usually have one guy that rides for us. He's a good kid, good rider, and I know a lot of the guys up in New York think a lot of him.”

Claimed from Tom Amoss at Delta Downs on Oct. 28 for $20,000, the 5-year-old Runhappy gelding had previously made just one grass run.

“We entered hoping it would come off,” Sharp said. “It all worked out today. Glad to see these fields hold up after coming off the turf. They did a great job having this track ready today after the rain we got. When I came out this morning, I thought there was no way we were going to be able to make these races. Hats off to track management. I have a lot of respect for what they did today.”

Paying $12.60for the win, Runway Magic improved his career record to 18-4-3-3 and took home $90,000 for his connections to make it $310,342 in lifetime earnings.

Having won the 2022 Glass Slipper with Invaluable, Sharp now has three Claiming Crown victories on his resume.

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