Horse Racing Free Tips

Slider Heads East for Gotham

Hall Racing, Pearl Racing and West Point Thoroughbreds' Slider (Jimmy Creed) will ship east in search of additional qualifying Kentucky Derby points in Saturday's GIII Gotham S. at Aqueduct. Winner of the Speakeasy S. over the turf at Santa Anita last October, Slider was ninth in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint. He returned to the main track to be third in the Jan. 6 GII San Vicente S. last time out.

Trained by John Sadler, Slider turned in bullet five-furlong work in :59.00 (1/121) at Santa Anita Sunday.

“He worked very well,” Sadler said Sunday. “He ended up catching a couple horses that broke off in front of him, but for me, it was more about how he galloped out since this will be the furthest he's ever run. If he looks good tomorrow, he gets on a plane early Tuesday to be there Tuesday afternoon to run Saturday.”

Sadler said timing was the main reason Slider was making the 2,792-mile journey from Santa Anita to Ozone Park for the Gotham.

“The spacing is good from his last race and we like a one-turn mile with him, so there's a lot of things to like for him [in the Gotham],” said Sadler.

Jose Lezcano, who won last year's Gotham aboard Raise Cain (Violence), will pick up the mount Saturday.

Sadler nominated two other colts to the Gotham, but said the duo will have other Derby prep assignments.

West Point Thoroughbreds' Scatify (Justify) returned from a debut win at Los Alamitos in December to be third behind the runaway winner Nysos (Nyquist) in the GIII Robert B. Lewis S. at Santa Anita Feb. 3.

“He might be looking at the [Mar. 2 GII] San Felipe or the [Mar. 9 GIII] Tampa Bay Derby,” said Sadler. “We were anxious to get him started and he was a little later getting to me than some of the other ones. We were pleasantly happy with his first race, and missed a little time before the Bob Lewis. He wasn't going to beat the winner that day, but I think if things had gone a little differently, he could have been second.”

Hronis Racing's Tapalo (Tapiture), most recently second in the Feb. 10 El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate, will likely remain on the synthetics and make his next start in the Mar. 23 GIII Jeff Ruby S. at Turfway Park.

“Tapalo will probably go to the Jeff Ruby,” said Sadler. “That was synthetic at Golden Gate and he ran a really nice race up there. I think he's a developing horse and it was a close race. He's progressing.”

Maximus Meridius Set to Make Stakes Debut in Gotham

Trainer Butch Reid is pointing Maximus Meridius (Maximus Mischief) to the Gotham. The bay colt worked four furlongs in :47.68 (2/33) at Parx Saturday.

“He breezed beautifully in :47 and change like breaking sticks. He's ready to go,” Reid said. “He did it on his own, he tends to get a little keyed up in company.”

Owned by LC Racing, Cash is King and Wellesley Stable, Maximus Meridius romped to a 10 1/2-length debut victory at Parx last November. He was third, beaten two lengths by Frankie's Empire (Classic Empire), who exited that race to win the Swale S. at Gulfstream Park, in a Dec. 26 optional claimer. Adding blinkers for his third start, Maximus Meridius returned to the winner's circle with a front-running victory going 6 1/2 furlongs at Parx Jan. 30.

Reid said the colt came to him via his brother, the retired Pennsylvania Hall of Fame trainer Mark Reid, who is known by the family as 'Uncle Heavy.'

“He's been very impressive from the beginning,” Reid said of Maximus Meridius. “He's a big, strong horse that we found out of a field in Chester County, Pennsylvania at my brother's place. He's been very forward the whole time we've had him.”

Reid said Uncle Heavy (Social Inclusion), a last-gasp winner of the GIII Withers S. Feb. 3, will aim for the Apr. 6 GII Wood Memorial S.

Due to an Equine Herpesvirus quarantine at Belmont Park, Uncle Heavy was shipped to a farm in Pennsylvania following his Withers victory, but was able to return to his Parx base Sunday with the quarantine now lifted.

“He was on the jogging machine and he didn't lose any fitness. He looks fantastic,” Reid said. “We'll have time for three or four good breezes. I'm not worried about fitness at all.”

Reid said he was impressed with Uncle Heavy's late-running win in the Withers.

“The key was the way he finished up. His last five strides were huge, big strides and he gobbled that horse up,” Reid said. “That was very impressive his first time going a mile and an eighth and we'll see if we can confirm that coming back in the Wood.”

Owned by Michael Milam, Uncle Heavy was bred by Reid's sister-in-law Barbara Reid and named for his brother.

“It's a great story and he's been a real find so far,” Reid said.

Uncle Heavy has banked $293,580 with a 4-3-0-0 record.

The post Slider Heads East for Gotham appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Letter to the Editor: Carrie Brogden

So I think this kind of sums up our industry, this attached photo. This weekend my daughter and I went to show her warmblood at WEC Ohio. It was a very successful weekend and we were lucky enough to stay at an Air BnB on a horse farm.

They had a book there with the check-in instructions and the history of the horse farm. I was reading the history of it, and I just wanted to share what to them is insignificant as just facts, but to me, it just hit me on the head as the truths we all need to face.

The show hunter world my daughter is riding in is absolutely booming… I mean it is much more popular now than when I was a kid growing up and showing my ponies. All of the stalls here are full and there are tons and tons of horse-loving people spending gazillion dollars to get zero return on their investments, other than their daughter or son's happiness.

It is going to be through the leadership in the horse racing world to change the trajectory that has been the same for us since I was a child at my parents Thoroughbred farm in Ocala in the 1980s. Funny as I remember the mixed sale catalogs there literally being three books and six days long in Florida.

I am no longer encouraging my daughter who wants to be a Grand Prix rider to eventually shift over to the Thoroughbreds.

Sadly, I have come to the realization that barring major change and intervention, there will be nothing left of our industry. By the time she is my age. (I am 51 she is 17)

Do you know the funny thing is about it all… We both have the most amazing draw and special thing to our industry… the HORSE!!!

But as one industry thrives the other dies.

Until it is about the sport and the horse like it is here in the show jumping world, my life, and the majority of people that I deal with in the Thoroughbred world will continue to contract in their businesses and farms…. As it is now, it is very hard for anything but the professionals to stand and be successful.

I mean, I know the expenses are all rising, as for labor, feed, hay, etc., all of the essentials, but this is the same here in the show world, so what have we done so horribly wrong? That they have done so horribly right?

To figure that out, and to move forward away from the horrendous go baby go campaigns and thought process that no longer appeals to our modern-day society… Then we might have a chance.

There is no person on the planet that wants the Thoroughbreds and our industry to thrive and succeed more in their heart than me. I know that there are many of us, but historically most of us have not had any voice and no seat at the table where it really counts.

The table settings just keep getting smaller and smaller and instead of baking more pies, we're all just fighting over the existing slices.

I don't have all the answers, but I certainly know that there are answers out there. There has to be the willingness to implement them in a unified voice in the current “leadership,” which is not easy in anything we do. I am certainly optimistic that maybe things will change with the new program of light up racing.

The first meeting is this Monday afternoon and I certainly hope that anyone that cares like I do will be there. I want there to be something left for my children to be proud of.

Sincerely,

Carrie Brogden, Machmer Hall

The post Letter to the Editor: Carrie Brogden appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Top-Class Multiple Group 1 Winner Nashwa Set For Dubai Turf Return

Top-class older filly Nashwa (GB) (Frankel {GB}) is being readied to make her seasonal return in the Dubai Turf at Meydan next month.

Winner of the French Oaks and the Nassau S. as a three-year-old in 2022, the John and Thady Gosden-trained mare notched a third Group 1 win in last season's Falmouth S. at Newmarket, as well as being placed in the Nassau, the Juddmonte International and the Irish Champion S.

She was well-beaten on her final start of the year in the Queen Elizabeth II S. at Ascot, but owner Imad Al Sagar has sportingly brought her back for another campaign.

“The plan at the moment is to head for the Dubai Turf,” said Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager to Al Sagar. “There doesn't seem to be an ideal race for her beforehand, so she'll probably have a racecourse gallop, just to make sure she's in good shape.”

He added, “She's won Group Ones at a mile and a-mile-and-a-quarter, so in between (nine furlongs) should be ideal. She's wintered well and is really just beginning her preparation. She's a lovely, scopey filly and very important to Imad and his Blue Diamond Stud–and it's exciting to have her back in full work.

“She ran some really top-class races last year, she had quite a hard end to the season but she seems to have got over it well and we're looking forward to this season.”

The post Top-Class Multiple Group 1 Winner Nashwa Set For Dubai Turf Return appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Spirit Lifts Ferguson’s Triumphant Second Act

A passion that was held against him by some, 20 years ago, has given Sir Alex Ferguson a new universe of pleasure.

They say there are no second acts in the lives of the famous – but you would have disputed that after seeing the former Manchester United manager's Spirit Dancer (GB) win the Howden Neom Turf Cup in Riyadh on Saturday night.

Ferguson's greatest thrill as a manager was to spot and develop young talent. David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and the Neville brothers were products of Ferguson's urge to 'breed' his own stars. The comparison was impossible to resist after Spirit Dancer – bred by Ferguson himself, from Frankel and Queen's Dream – came with a pulsating run under Oisin Orr to earn a £945,000 prize for him, Ged Mason and Peter Done, joint-owners of a seven-year-old who has become a star in the Middle East.

Spirit Dancer had already won the Bahrain International Trophy in November and will now be trained by Richard Fahey for a race at the Dubai World Cup meeting. All this is a far cry from the earthy British and Irish National Hunt tracks where Ferguson has watched several high-class jumpers leap and slog in his colours.

There is another context to Spirit Dancer's victory. We count the victories and the defeats of the greatest names in sport but see less clearly the agonies behind the theatre curtain.

In October last year, Ferguson lost his wife, Lady Cathy, at the age of 84. The two met in 1964. They had three children and 12 grandchildren. Both remained loyal to their roots in Glasgow. Behind the scenes Cathy was a rock and a dispenser of wisdom, often pithily. She was unchanged by the fame heaped on her family.

When I co-wrote his autobiography with Ferguson in 2013, we talked endlessly about his love for racing. He recalled a time when the intensity of managing United was starting to burn. In the book he said: “I was at the stage where Cathy was saying, 'You're going to kill yourself.' At home after work, I would be on the phone until 9 o'clock at night thinking about football every minute.”

He bought his first horse in 1996, after a lunch with the late John Mulhern, the Irish trainer, a man not lacking powers of persuasion. “The problem with you is that you'll want to buy every bloody horse,” Cathy told her husband.

We count the victories and the defeats of the greatest names in sport but see less clearly the agonies behind the theatre curtain.

That first one was called Queensland Star (Ire), named after a vessel his shipbuilding father had worked on the docksides of Govan. Those early forays led Ferguson into a successful spell of ownership in National Hunt racing, via a fallout with Coolmore (they're now on good terms) over breeding rights to Rock Of Gibraltar (Ire). A winner of seven consecutive Group 1 races, Rock Of Gibraltar had raced in Ferguson's silks.

The Coolmore dispute didn't diminish Ferguson's belief that racing could be a successful hunting ground for him as well as a fresh outlet in life after football management.

But no amount of fame or success can protect the elderly from the ravages of bereavement. Ferguson was 81 when Cathy passed away and faced a colossal adjustment to daily life. A widower after nearly six decades, Ferguson then said goodbye to his greatest ally at United, Sir Bobby Charlton, two weeks after Cathy's death.

The Riyadh celebration was more restrained than in Bahrain, where Mason lifted Ferguson so forcibly that he damaged one of his ribs. But to see 'Fergie' rejoicing trackside in Riyadh was to be reminded that racing can become not just a hobby but a way of life. To breed a top-class horse (after negotiating-down the cost of a nomination to Frankel) is another level of gratification – and one entirely comparable to Ferguson's youth policy at United, which revived the earlier thinking of Matt Busby.

Later, to compete with Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City, Ferguson was thrust into the world of mega-transfers and global names. But his first love was developing his own players, just as he acquired Queen's Dream as a broodmare and brought Spirit Dancer into existence.

Nobody could have expected him to disappear after he retired as United manager in 2013. His restless energy and joie de vivre were bound to find fresh expression. Yet nor could it have been safely predicted that he would end up winning a million-pound race with a homebred son of Frankel (GB), three weeks after his promising novice chaser, Hermes Allen (Fr), was killed in a fall at Sandown.

When the Rock Of Gibraltar row blew up, somebody stood up at a Manchester United AGM and demanded Ferguson's resignation. Others accused him of becoming “distracted.” A decade later he left Old Trafford with 13 Premier League titles, two Champions League titles and five FA Cups.

Not everyone can compete at his level, but there are few better advertisements for what racing can bring to a person's life than Ferguson's triumphant second act in sport. As ever, Cathy was right about the voraciousness he would bring to his new hobby.

The post Spirit Lifts Ferguson’s Triumphant Second Act appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post