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Australia: Reigning Horses Of The Year Melody Belle and Nature Strip At Flemington

Two reigning Horses of the Year headline a pair of excellent Group 1 races in Melbourne, while early season 2-year-olds are “gifted” a million-dollar purse in Sydney this Friday night. The fourth and final day of the “Melbourne Cup Carnival” at Flemington coincides with Rosehill's $1,000,000 Golden Gift, as both cards wedge neatly between the Breeders' Cup programs in the U.S. With some large Trifecta and Pick 4 pay outs on Melbourne Cup Day, handicappers will be looking to build their bank in Australia on Friday night.

Melody Belle, recently crowned New Zealand Horse of the Year for the second straight season, has taken her incredible tally of G1 wins to 12 with victories in the same pair of races that preceded her successful mission to Australia last November. In 2019, Melody Belle won a G1 for fillies and mares on the opening day of the “Melbourne Cup Carnival,” before a gallant runner-up effort a week later. This year, connections skipped the first of those races and have specifically targeted this Friday night's Mackinnon Stakes.

The 6-year-old brings a superb 17-for-34 career record back to Melbourne, as she seeks redemption for an unlucky second place finish to Aidan O'Brien's globetrotting filly, Magic Wand. Melody Belle (4-1) will be ridden for the first time by 25-year-old Jye McNeil, fresh off his career-defining win for Joseph O'Brien in Monday night's Melbourne Cup (at odds that matched his age). The Mackinnon Stakes (Race 8) is a weight-for-age contest at 1 1/4 miles, almost identical conditions to the prestigious W.S. Cox Plate. Thus, it is not surprising that Melody Belle's stiffest opposition is expected from Mugatoo (4-1) and Arcadia Queen (3-1 favorite), based on their respective fourth and fifth-place finishes in the Cox Plate two weeks ago.

Two races prior to the Mackinnon, Australia's Horse of the Year for the 2019-20 season will be in action in the G1 Darley Classic. Nature Strip returns to Flemington's iconic “straight six” furlongs course, and will try to replicate the most exhilarating performance of a career punctuated by perplexing losses. Australian racing's biggest enigma has now lost three straight races for the first time, yet nobody who witnessed his scintillating performance in this event last year will be brave enough to write him off. As in 2019, Nature Strip finished off the board (his usual modus operandi if not getting his picture taken) in The Everest, before returning from Sydney for the Darley Classic. If his career record of 26,14-3-0 leaves one flummoxed as to which version will appear next, it is worth bearing in mind that the 6-year-old's record down the Flemington straight course is four-for-five (and two-for-two at six furlongs).

Nature Strip shares favoritism at 3-1 with another G1 winner down Flemington's straight course, Bivouac, who comes off a terrific second in The Everest. Further opposition exiting the world's richest turf race is expected from the mare, Libertini, who was heavily bet (8-1 into 5-1) in The Everest but had no luck from the extreme outside gate. Both Bivouac and Libertini contested The Everest second up and are still fresh into their current campaigns. Coincidentally, they finished in the minor placings in the same G1 race (for 3-year-olds) down the Flemington straight during last year's Melbourne Cup Carnival.

While Melbourne holds the Friday night spotlight, Sydney's Rosehill Racecourse will be the scene of an exciting addition to Australia's rich program of juvenile races. The Southern Hemisphere racing season began on Aug. 1 and the first 2-year-old races were run only a month ago, yet an early carrot is being dangled for connections of the most precocious juveniles. The Golden Gift, at 5 1/2 furlongs, carries a purse of $1,000,000. The China Horse Club owns a pair of debut stakes winners, Captivant (3-1 favorite) and Tiger of Malay (7-1). Last year's inaugural Golden Gift winner, Dame Giselle (a subsequent multiple stakes winner), is part-owned by the China Horse Club and came through the same debut race as Tiger of Malay. It's unusual to see 2-year-olds traveling interstate this early in the season, but the lucrative purse sees both Sneaky Five (9-2) and Ghostwriter (10-1) being whisked to Sydney after scoring debut wins in Melbourne and Brisbane, respectively. The race includes three first-time starters, and North American fans will be intrigued by a Chris Waller-trained son of American Pharoah named Head of State (14-1), who has won both of his trials (“training races”). A G2 event for fillies and mares follows the Golden Gift on the Rosehill card.

The Flemington and Rosehill cards will be broadcast live on TVG this Friday night (First Post: 10:25 p.m. ET / 7:25 p.m. PT) alongside cards from Doomben and Gold Coast. All races will also be live-streamed in HD with past performances available for free at skyracingworld.com and major ADW platforms. Wagering is available via all the major ADW platforms such as TVG, TwinSpires, Xpressbet, NYRABets, WatchandWager, HPIbet, AmWager, and BetAmerica. The Pick 7 wager is available on the Flemington (AUS-A) card.

A native of Brisbane, Australia, Michael Wrona has called races in six countries. Michael's vast U.S. experience includes; race calling at Los Alamitos, Hollywood Park, Arlington and Santa Anita, calling the 2000 Preakness on a national radio network and the 2016 Breeders' Cup on the International simulcast network. Michael also performed a race call voiceover for a Seinfeld episode called The Subway.

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Zia Assistant Starter Barred Six Months For Slapping Filly’s Head

An assistant starter at Zia Park has been ruled off by the track’s stewards for six months for slapping a filly in the head four times while the animal was locked in the gate prior to a race going off.

Ramon Alvarez has not appealed the ban, which went into effect Nov. 2 and runs through May 1, 2021, according to Izzy Trejo, the executive director of the New Mexico Racing Commission.

The abuse took place Oct. 20 during a mixed-meet card of Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses at Zia. Alvarez was in the outermost stall attempting to control Javys Brown Sugar prior to Race 4, a 400-yard Quarter Horse trial for New Mexico-bred 3-year-olds.

Javys Brown Sugar dropped her head several times and Alvarez’s reaction was to correct her with four open-handed slaps to the head, Trejo explained in an email to TDN.

Trejo acknowledged that the incident is difficult to see on the pan and head-on replays, but he added that the stewards utilized a cross-view gate angle from the outside post pointing toward the inside to get a definitive look at Alvarez delivering the blows.

After being hit, Javys Brown Sugar was allowed to start and ran third at 39-1 odds.

“The bottom line is, this type of behavior against our horses will not be tolerated,” Trejo wrote. “It’s people like this in our industry that just pound that nail deeper into the coffin as others work diligently in trying to keep the industry afloat.”

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Vibrant Trade At Goffs Online Sale

Goffs on Thursday staged the first-ever bloodstock auction in England or Ireland conducted exclusively online, and the result was largely positive in the midst of the country’s second national lockdown. With the Goffs team auctioning virtually in an empty ring at Kildare Paddocks, 86 horses in training were offered, with the clearance rate of 72% for 62 sold matching last year’s figure. Turnover, similarly, was up 3% to €1,019,800 despite fewer offered and sold, and the average climbed 24% to €16,448. The median was down 22% at €7,000.

The top price of €125,000 far exceeded last year’s €70,000 top lot, and taking the honours was Godolphin offering Paso Doble (Ire) (Dawn Approach {Ire}) (lot 553), who was bought by Tom Malone. The 3-year-old Paso Doble was previously trained by Jim Bolger and has won twice and been third three times in five runs this year over extended trips.

The Aga Khan consignment was responsible for the next three highest-priced lots, headed by JS Bloodstock and Matt Cumani’s purchase Taramansour (Ire) (Dansili {GB}) (lot 574). The 3-year-old colt heads Down Under after having won in July for Dermot Weld. He was most recently ninth behind Paso Doble in a Fairyhouse handicap on Oct. 1. Also from the Aga Khan draft were 3-year-old geldings Alatar (Ire) (Ruler of the World {Ire}) (lot 572) and Zarzyni (Ire) (Siyouni {Fr}) (lot 577). They were bought, respectively, by John McConnell and David Barron for €64,000 and €62,000.

Matt Cumani was not the only Australian trainer active in the online bidding; Chris Waller swooped for Bashiyr (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) (lot 575), a 4-year-old gelding also from the Aga Khan draft, for €50,000.

Goffs Group Chief Executive Henry Beeby said upon conclusion of the sale, “2020 is proving to be a year of firsts and the overwhelming majority are largely negative caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. However today’s Goffs HIT Sale has been a positive as it has the distinction of being the first live auction conducted purely online in UK or Ireland. Whilst we are not pretending this was by design as we were forced to react to the current restrictions in Ireland, we have been very pleased with the reaction from both vendors and purchasers with plenty of spirited online bidding as well as several telephone bids leading to a very acceptable trade for the catalogue on offer headed by a very respectable six-figure top price that comfortably surpassed last year’s and a proper rise in the average price. Indeed, today’s experience has been encouraging enough for us to decide that our Autumn Yearling Sale will also be run as a live online auction in a couple of weeks’ time.

“We would like to thank those vendors that stood their ground and gave us the chance to prove the worth of our online platform as it was truly a leap of faith for every one of them. We are also very grateful to the large number of purchasers who interacted with us remotely and wish them the very best of luck with their purchases, all of which were offered with veterinary certificates, online films and as much information as we could provide. Indeed, we were overwhelmed by the level of interest with 250 individual registrations to bid online which is quite something for an 86 lot sale.

“I confess that today was quite surreal in many ways as we auctioned to an empty sales arena but it certainly proved that the bloodstock industry is extremely adaptable which gives us all belief that we will navigate a way through this terrible time.”

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Maryland’s Sagamore Farm Will Now Produce Whiskey, Not Racehorses

Sagamore Racing, the Maryland-based breeding and racing operation founded 14 years ago by Under Armour chief executive Kevin Plank, is getting out of the sport. Its horses have been in the gradual process of being sold off, and the historic 530-acre Sagamore Farm in Glyndon will transition into supplying rye, corn and limestone-filtered spring water to support a Plank-backed whiskey distillery.

Sagamore led all breeders of Maryland-breds by earnings in 2019, and at its peak during Plank’s tenure the farm housed 100 horses. The news comes 10 years to the date that Sagamore Racing color bearer Shared Account upset the GI Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at 46-1, which marked the first elite-level win for the stable.

The Baltimore Sun and WBAL radio both broke the story around the same time on the morning of Nov. 5.

Plank told the Sun that his decision to exit the Thoroughbred business is not related to Under Armour’s woes in the athletic apparel sector. Shares in the company’s stock have plummeted nearly 70% in value over the last five years. In a Nov. 3 article, the financial news outlet Motley Fool attributed the decline to “executive shake-ups, brand missteps, and an extremely difficult competitive environment.”

Plank was upbeat about his new venture in his WBAL radio interview, saying he was cognizant that he has a duty of stewardship to protect the farm in the heart of Maryland’s horse country that formerly stabled Alfred G. Vanderbilt Jr.’s breeding and racing operation between 1933 and 1986.

“I’m a revolution guy, not an evolution guy, and [I believe in] being intentional in what you’re doing,” Plank told WBAL. “And [when we] started looking at what we can do with racing, I said, ‘We’re either 100% behind it and we’re going to go make it win, or you’re not. So that’s what we just looked at, the racing aspect of the operation, and said, ‘It’s time for us to move.’

“Horse racing, it is a terrific sport, and it’s a passion; a labor of love,” Plank continued. “And now I get to move this and transition into a passion and labor where I think we’re going to make the world’s most famous rye whiskey.”

Sagamore Racing will attempt to go out on a high note when it sends out Global Campaign (Curlin) in Saturday’s GI Breeders’ Cup Classic. The six-for-nine colt is 20-1 on the morning-line coming off a wire-to-wire win in the GI Whitney S. at Saratoga Sept. 5.

“How about the serendipity of the bookends between Shared Account [and Global Campaign]?” Planks asked rhetorically in his WBAL interview. Back when Shared Account won, Plank said, “we were just a couple of years into horse racing. I didn’t even know how big of a deal winning the Breeders’ Cup was at the time.”

Plank continued: “It brings in an old Under Armour saying that I’ve used, which is, ‘We were always smart enough to be naïve enough to not know what we couldn’t accomplish.’ And so it felt like that first victory for the Breeders’ Cup was like, ‘Yeah, every farm does this every year, don’t ya?’ So to be here 10 years later, and to be at the Breeders’ Cup and be in the Classic of all things, [we know] Global Campaign will be longer odds than most of them. But there’s a reason that horse is in the race and he’s got a shot.”

Sagamore Farm was bequeathed to Vanderbilt by his mother for his 21st birthday in 1933. Vanderbilt would go on to become the owner and president of Pimlico Race Course while serving at various times as head of the New York Racing Association and The Jockey Club. Over the decades, Sagamore was home to three eventual Hall of Fame horses, most notably the 21-for-22 Native Dancer, who won both the 1953 Preakness and Belmont S. The Queen of England even kept a broodmare on the property during its heyday.

Vanderbilt sold the farm to a developer in 1986 and it eventually sunk into disrepair. Plank purchased it in 2007, and in 2011 he told the New York Times that he had a 20-year plan in place to grow the stable while championing Maryland racing and breeding.

“Buying the first string of horses in 2006 and then [having the] privilege to call Sagamore Farm home for the last 14 years [has] been an amazing journey that we’ve had of being in the racing business,” Plank told WBAL. “There’s just so many great memories here. But like many things, it’s time for us to turn the page right now, and to start a new chapter out here in Sagamore Farm. And so that 14-year run we had is something that we’re super proud of, and we’ll always love it. The trophies will live on.”

Plank said his plan is to keep Sagamore Farm open to the public as a “community asset,” with the distillery hosting public tours. Native Dancer’s gravesite on the property is expected to remain intact, and a small number of retired Thoroughbreds will remain on the farm as pasture horses, according to WBAL.

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