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‘Win-Win’: Kentucky Commission Approves July 2 Opening Date For Ellis Park

Ellis Park on Tuesday received regulatory approval to begin its summer meet on Thursday July 2 rather than the previously scheduled Sunday June 28 opener. The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission unanimously approved the change, which includes Churchill Downs extending its spring meet one day to close on June 28.

Ellis Park general manager Jeff Inman said the track had requested the delay to have more time to institute all the safety protocols involved with staging horse racing in the COVID-19 era. Ellis Park is making up for not running June 28 by adding July 2, a date it originally had not planned to run.

“It's win-win for everybody, including the state and Kentucky horsemen picking up an additional day of racing,” Inman said.

Ellis Park will not be able to accommodate spectators in the grandstand or outdoor areas until receiving approval from Gov. Andy Beshear's office. Under the state's measures for getting businesses back in operation following the COVID shutdown, the Ellis Park clubhouse has been allowed to re-open for Historical Horse Racing on the first floor and simulcast wagering on tracks across the country on the second floor.

The dates adjustments are the latest amid the health emergency that forced Keeneland to cancel its spring meet and for Churchill Downs to open later than scheduled. Ellis Park now will run July 2-5, then be dark the following week to allow Keeneland to run July 8-12. Ellis Park then resumes its Friday-Sunday schedule on July 17, running through Aug. 30.

Ellis Park earlier gave Sept. 1-6 to Churchill Downs in order to let the Louisville track run a rescheduled Kentucky Derby Week, with the Derby on Sept. 5.

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DNA Testing Brings Retired Racemare Back To Front Back Home Again

Her racing name was Back to Front, but as far as Michelle Macatee is concerned, the now 17-year-old mare is back where she belongs.

It took 13 years after originally adopting her, and more than a decade of searching after life circumstances forced their breakup, for Macatee and the horse lovingly called Bebe to be reunited.

“She was just meant to be back with me,” Macatee, 50 said. “I got her back.”

Foaled Jan. 20, 2003, New York-bred Back to Front is a bay daughter of Senor Speedy out of the Badger Land mare Turnback and Count who raced five times in 2006, finishing second in her debut during the Maryland State Fair meet in Timonium. Her other starts came at Charles Town Race Track in West Virginia.

Claimed for $10,000 out of her second start, Back to Front ran two more times but was retired after refusing to break from the gate in what would be her final race.

It wasn't long before Macatee acquired Back to Front from a Thoroughbred adoption agency in New Jersey, where she was living at the time during a period of 12 years going back and forth between Florida.

“When I first got her as a 4-year-old, I had her for maybe three months and I was out at a bar on the Jersey Shore, I met a guy and went out on a date with him. He lived in Pennsylvania, and she had come from a track in New York to the New Jersey adoption,” Macatee said. “So I'm telling this guy the story of how I just adopted a horse. He asked her name and I told him and he said, 'Did my friends put you up to this?' and he just looked at me really strange.

“He said, 'Show me a picture' and I did, and he said, 'You adopted my horse,'” she added.

Macatee showed horses as a teenager and was in her late 20s when she adopted her first horse off the racetrack, an experience that led her to her love affair with Back to Front.

“I had him for years and sold him to a good home. I was kind of a beginner adult again. I called the adoption agency and said, 'Give me something nice and safe that's not going to kill me, and has a puppy-dog personality,' and that's how I got her. That's her,” Macatee said.

“I originally adopted her as a 4-year-old out of Thoroughbred adoption in New Jersey. I had her on my property here and when I moved to Florida, I brought her with me to Florida,” she added. “I had her a few years and we were just about ready to go to our first show, probably about a month away, and I had a job circumstance change and a breakup and I just couldn't afford her anymore. The horse adoption that was on the property told me that they had a great family with two kids and she was going to live in the backyard. It just seemed like the perfect home for her.”

Fast forward two years. Back on her feet and renting a property in Wellington, Fla., Macatee reached out to the adoption agency to check on Back to Front with the ultimate goal of bringing her home.

“I wanted to offer the people a lot of money to get her back, or at least go visit her,” she said. “They said they didn't have the records of her. All these years I just wanted to go visit her. I would Google her online and her name wasn't coming up. I just kept looking.”

Having moved back to New Jersey full-time, Macatee found herself back in Florida recently for work when she decided to look again. She visited the Florida Thoroughbred Retirement and Adoptive Care (TRAC) website, and was stunned with what she found.

“I've been looking for another horse, so I was going through their horses and I was on like the fourth page and then I was going to go back to sleep. I got to the last page, and there she was. Back to Front,” Macatee said. “It was 3 o'clock in the morning. There was nothing I could do. I was walking in circles – I get teary-eyed just talking about it. It's now 9 years later, she's 17 and she was at the adoption for a really long time.”

Macatee had previously noticed a horse that resembled Back to Front, but was listed under the name Annie.

“So what they did was, a year ago, they sent the DNA on her and found out her name. They had a management change [at TRAC] and the management team was getting the records together and they were told she wasn't even a Thoroughbred and she had a different name,” Macatee said. “They saw her tattoo and they did the DNA and got her name, and that's the only way I found her.

“After I found her, I went to TRAC and saw her. She was just as sweet as ever,” she added. “I set up the trailer to come back here to New Jersey that day and I drove up ahead of her.”

Bebe arrived at Macatee's property in New Jersey June 8. The following day, Macatee presented the mare to her 8-year-old granddaughter, Rylie, who is just beginning to take riding lessons.

“Bebe just stood on a loose lead for her half-hour bath, and they walked around the field together and Bebe followed her. And now she's eating lunch in her stall,” Macatee said. “The perfect horse turned out to be her. Rylie said, 'I couldn't have picked out a more beautiful or perfect horse myself.' I'm still crying.”

Back to Front's home now is Westhampton Farm, a state-of-the-art Thoroughbred facility located on 100 acres in Bergen County that backs up to the Burlington Country Club and offers large fields, a pool and other amenities.

“She'll be spoiled rotten,” Macatee said.

Macatee is grateful for having her persistence pay off and culminate in a success story not only for her and her granddaughter, but for their horse.

“I've just been so emotional. I'm talking to you and I'm just sitting here crying. For years I just wanted to go visit her, and here she is. I don't have to worry about her. You always worry about what if somebody sells her or she goes to a bad home or something,” Macatee said.

“It broke my heart when I had to find a home for her, but I thought that she was in a great place. I think the important thing is to find a way to just find them again. The DNA was just amazing,” she added. “She would have been lost without it.”

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Una Bella d’Oro: Don Alberto’s New Golden Girl

It’s a toss-up, really, as to who made the bigger splash in 2017–the Don Alberto Corporation itself, or their superstar filly Unique Bella (Tapit).

Three years ago, Don Alberto Corporation continued their traditional annual shopping spree at the fall breeding stock sales, spending a combined $8.3 million at Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton, plus an additional $3.35 million in partnership purchases at the Keeneland November Sale.

Meanwhile, their $400,000 2015 Keeneland September purchase Unique Bella shone bright as a 3-year-old with four consecutive graded stakes wins and a later victory in the GI La Brea S., earning Don Alberto Stable their first Grade I win in the U.S., as well as an Eclipse Award for champion female sprinter.

No matter who stole the show, Don Alberto has defined itself as a force both at the sales and on the track in the United States, and Unique Bella played a major role in establishing this reputation.

“It’s very obvious that Unique Bella was the one that put Don Alberto on the map and put our silks out there,” Don Alberto’s Executive Director Fabricio Buffolo said. “She won the La Brea S. as a 3-year-old, and then coming back at four, the Beholder Mile S. and the Clement Hirsch S. So three Grade Is, including the first Grade I for Don Alberto.”

The daughter of champion sire Tapit retired in the summer of 2018 as a millionaire with eight graded stakes wins and two Eclipse awards to her credit. The towering gray filly was a fan favorite throughout her career and a top earner for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer. She was sent to Don Alberto’s new farm in Lexington upon retirement. The former 440-acre Vinery Farm was purchased by Don Alberto in 2013.

The next year, she was bred to top Darley stallion Medaglia d’Oro, the sire of 25 individual Grade I winners including Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra, dual Eclipse winner Songbird and Canadian Horse of the Year Wonder Gadot.

This January, the 6-year-old mare delivered her first foal.

Buffolo said that the foaling went perfectly and that their team is now ecstatic with the bright young filly.

“Her foaling was good, and Unique Bella was nice and kind to the foal,” he said. “We think she’s an outstanding filly. She has plenty of scope and she’s definitely growing the right way.”

The youngster comes from a family of powerhouse mares, and Buffolo said this one looks to fit that mold.

“She’s a pretty tall filly already,” he said. “She has plenty of leg. Soon we’re going to be looking to wean her. So it’s another step for her, but she’s a really good filly with a good temperament and we expect great things from her.”

The foal has been named, but where she might end up is still unknown.

“We named her Una Bella d’Oro,” Buffolo said. “We’ll see, she might go to the sale and she might not.”

The filly, who’s name translates to ‘a beautiful golden one’ in Italian, won’t live up to the “golden” part of her name in respect to her coat color, as she is developing her mother’s bright dapple gray coat more every day.

Buffolo reflected upon Unique Bella’s racing career and how her personality has changed as she transitioned into motherhood.

“On the track, you could see from her workouts…she wanted to go fast and there was no holding her back,” he said. “She just wanted to go and go and go. And that’s definitely a trait that is good to see on the good horses, right? They want to go no matter what.”

He continued, “I was involved with Royal Delta as well, and you see that with some of those mares, sometimes they want their own way and it’s whatever they want and you need to adjust to it. So Unique Bella is like that, but to be honest, she has settled quite a bit as a mom. She’s really quiet and gets along with her peers. She’s been pretty easy as a broodmare.”

Unique Bella has checked back in foal to two-time Horse of the Year Curlin for next year.

It’s an exciting time for the Don Alberto Corporation. Since their first expansion to the States in 2013, they are now starting to see some of the first products of their hard work.

“The engine has started working,” Buffolo said. “We know the mares and know more about how they are producing. We are getting better at matings because we know what we can do with them.”

While Don Alberto is still a relatively new name in the U.S., the corporation has been an international powerhouse for many years.

Their Chilean location, Haras Don Alberto, was founded in 1987. Liliana Solari and her son Carlos Heller Solari are the driving forces behind the business.

“Miss Liliana has a passion for horses and always loved the breeding,” Buffolo said. “She had a few good mares from her father, Alberto, and she started breeding on her own in Chile. It’s a long tradition there for them and it’s a big operation nowadays.”

Haras Don Alberto has leased a number of stallions for the Southern Hemisphere breeding season including Bluegrass Cat, Fusaichi Pegasus, Stevie Wonderboy, and Proud Citizen. They are also involved with WinStar’s Tourist (Tiznow) and the red-hot Constitution (Tapit).

Don Alberto Corporation is a subsidiary of Bethia Holdings, which holds interests in retail, television, health care, agriculture, and a variety of other businesses. They also own the local Chilean racetrack Club Hipico de Santiago.

The expansion to their United States location was all in pursuit of Don Alberto’s ultimate goal.

“The goal is to have successful horses in Chile, and then hopefully in the U.S.,” Buffolo said. “[The goal is] that they can be competitive anywhere.”

Their first U.S. Grade I winner in Unique Bella was one of the first fulfillments of that goal, and she will always be a favorite for the Solari family.

“Miss Liliana’s favorite thing is to bring carrots to Unique Bella,” Buffolo said. “They have a very strong emotional connection to the horses. They’re passionate not only about the breeding and racing, but about the animals as a whole.”

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INS Stallion’s Summer Series Announced

The Irish EBF and the Irish National Stud will be joint sponsors of four 2-year-old fillies’ maidens this summer, the stud announced on Tuesday. The INS Stallion’s Summer Series will give the winning breeder a free nomination for the 2021 season to the stallion named in each race in addition to the prizemoney allocation. The June 20 ‘Free Eagle’ Irish EBF Fillies’ Maiden will be held at Naas, followed by the ‘Phoenix of Spain’ Irish EBF Fillies’ Maiden at The Curragh on June 26, the July 3 ‘National Defense’ Irish EBF Fillies’ Maiden at Navan and finally Leopardstown’s July 23 ‘Decorated Knight’ Irish EBF Fillies’ Maiden.

“The INS are delighted to partner with the Irish EBF to create a summer series of 2-year-old fillies’ maidens which will benefit a wide cross section of the industry.”

Added Irish EBF Chairman John O’Connor, “The Irish EBF board would like to thank the Irish National Stud for co-sponsoring with us at this crucial time. We are delighted to see stallion farms increasing their sponsorship to help the bloodstock industry at this difficult time and we would encourage other stallion farms and commercial sponsors to follow suit.”

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