always dreaming | Horse Racing Free Tips

WinStar Farm has set 2021 stud fees for its 22-stallion roster, headed by Speightstown who will stand for $90,000 S&N and leading second-crop sire Constitution who will stand for $85,000 S&N.

WinStar will further bolster its roster for the upcoming breeding season by welcoming new stallions Improbable, Laoban, Tom's d'Etat, Global Campaign, and Promises Fulfilled. WinStar has also announced that considering the current circumstances facing the industry that fees for most of the stallions on its roster will be reduced.

“During these times we felt it appropriate to drop 75 percent of our fees,” said Elliott Walden, WinStar's president, CEO, and racing manager. “We gave two horses a bump—Speightstown, the co-leading sire this year with three Grade 1 winners and fourth general leading sire, and Constitution who has over-delivered at every point of his career. As always, our mission is to offer breeders stallions of the highest quality. We are excited about Laoban joining our roster and three very live horses in the Breeders' Cup Classic joining our roster for the 2021 breeding season.”

Added Liam O'Rourke, WinStar's director of bloodstock services, “We are offering breeders the opportunity to secure a limited number of seasons to Laoban, Outwork, and Improbable before the Breeders' Cup, with their prices subject to change based on their Breeders' Cup results.”

Improbable, City Zip's only four-time Grade 1 winner, has rattled off three consecutive Grade 1 scores in 2020 and is the early favorite for next month's $6-million Breeders' Cup Classic. He was a runaway winner of the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup at Santa Anita, earning a 105 Beyer and then shipped to Saratoga and dominated the historic G1 Whitney Stakes, earning a 106 Beyer. Most recently, he romped by 4 1/2 lengths in the G1 Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita, defeating champion Maximum Security and earning a 108 Beyer.

Tom's d'Etat, by sire of sires Smart Strike, is also a top contender for the Breeders' Cup Classic for G M B Racing. He registered a brilliant 4 1/4-length victory in this year's G2 Stephen Foster Stakes, running a career-best 109 Beyer. Tom's d'Etat covered 1 1/8 miles in an eye-catching 1:47.30, geared down in the late stages. The final time came within a whisker of Victory Gallop's track and stakes record of 1:47.28 set in 1999.

The Al Stall trainee has recorded 10 triple-digit Beyers, including nine in a row in an illustrious career. Tom's d'Etat is out of the stakes-winning and multiple stakes-placed Giant's Causeway mare Julia Tuttle who is out of a full sister to Pacific Classic (G1) winner and leading sire Candy Ride (ARG).

Global Campaign, a son of two-time Horse of the Year Curlin, heads to the Breeders' Cup Classic following back-to-back graded stakes scores and is a winner in three of four starts in 2020 for WinStar Farm and Sagamore Farm. He emulated his sire by capturing the G1 Woodward Handicap in his most recent start, earning a career-best 104 Beyer for trainer Stanley Hough. The Woodward was his second straight graded win following a victory in the G3 Monmouth Cup Stakes in his prior outing.

Promises Fulfilled won five graded stakes at distances from six furlongs to 1 1/16 miles—winning the G1 H. Allen Jerkens Stakes, G2 Fountain of Youth Stakes, G2 John A. Nerud Stakes, G2 Phoenix Stakes, and G3 Amsterdam Stakes, competing exclusively in graded stakes company following his first two victories at two. In front in 15-of-17 starts no matter the distance, Promises Fulfilled competed in 15 graded stakes, including eight Grade 1s, banking $1,455,530 in a stellar career for trainer Dale Romans.

The upcoming breeding season—with the influx of Grade 1 winners embarking on their stallion careers at WinStar—will also mark a changing of the guard. Tiznow, a multiple champion on the racetrack and an influential stallion who has made an indelible mark on the breed, will be retired from stud duty. Still the only two-time winner of the Breeders' Cup Classic, Tiznow was a champion on the racetrack and in the breeding shed, siring numerous elite runners.

Known as “The Big Horse Sire,” Tiznow is the sire of 15 Grade 1 winners that have won many of the world's most prestigious events. He is the sire of Dubai World Cup winner Well Armed, G1 Travers Stakes winner Colonel John, and Breeders' Cup winners Folklore, winner of the 2005 Juvenile Fillies and Tourist, winner of the 2016 Mile. He has even made his mark as an emerging broodmare sire of 34 stakes winners, including multiple Grade 1 winner Tiz the Law.

Fees with an asterisk are good through Breeders' Cup and are subject to change pending results. For Tom's d'Etat and Global Campaign, fees will be announced after the Breeders' Cup.

The complete 2021 roster of stallions and fees for WinStar Farm are as follows:

Stallion	S&N Fee
Tom's d'Etat – NEW	TBD
Global Campaign – NEW	TBD
Distorted Humor	Private
Speightstown	$90,000
Constitution	$85,000
More Than Ready	$65,000
Improbable – NEW	$40,000*
Laoban – NEW	$25,000*
Audible	$22,500
Always Dreaming	$17,500
Exaggerator	$15,000
Outwork	$15,000*
Take Charge Indy	$15,000
Yoshida (JPN)	$15,000
Speightster	$10,000
Promises Fulfilled – NEW	$10,000
Carpe Diem	$7,500
Congrats	$7,500
Good Samaritan	$7,500
Paynter	$7,500
Tourist	$5,000
Fed Biz	$5,000

The post Speightstown, Constitution Headline WinStar Farm’s 2021 Stallion Roster; Tiznow Pensioned From Stud Duty appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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As a horse racing enthusiast, owner, and a native New Yorker, Vincent Viola holds the Grade 1, $1 million Belmont Stakes in the highest of regards. When asked by friends and family which race he most wants to win, he said he holds the American Classic at Belmont Park in the same regard as the Kentucky Derby.

Viola was able to cross the “Run for the Roses” off the checklist when Always Dreaming took him and numerous other owners, including wife Teresa Viola and fellow Brooklynite Anthony Bonomo, on a memorable ride in winning the 2017 Kentucky Derby. Two years later, the successful businessman again found himself heading to the winner's circle on one of the racing's biggest days when Vino Rosso, whom he co-owned with Repole Stable, captured the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita en route to earning the Eclipse Award for Champion Older Dirt Male.

But when Dr Post goes into the starting gate for Saturday's 152nd edition of the Belmont Stakes, he'll be attempting to give his owner a victory in the race that he holds the nearest and dearest to his heart.

“The Belmont is absolutely the race that I covet the most,” Viola said. “The race has a fantastic tradition. It's a different race this year given the circumstances at hand, but it still carries the history and memories of fantastic editions in the past. I've always put the Belmont right up there with the Kentucky Derby.”

Owned by Viola's St. Elias Stable, which is a nod to his father's middle name, Dr Post will be a second Belmont Stakes contender for Viola, who launched the electronic market making company Virtu Financial in 2008, five years before becoming owner of the National Hockey League's Florida Panthers.

Frequent visits to Belmont Park and Aqueduct as a child with his father piqued Viola's interest in the sport of kings.

“I went to the racetrack as a young man with my dad regularly,” Viola recalled. “My dad taught me how to calculate odds, watch odds and figure out the impact of money in the mutuel pools, so from a mathematics and handicapping standpoint he taught me a lot about the game. I've been a real fan of the sport, but I never imagined that I would own a horse or help manage horses at this level. I would say it was a childhood romance. It's a heart and soul sport, I just wish more people would be blessed with opportunity to be introduced to it.”

Viola got his first taste of being a part of the Belmont Stakes when Vino Rosso ran fourth to Triple Crown-winner Justify in 2018.

Though light on experience, Dr Post gives his connections reason to believe a celebration could be imminent as he enters this year's Belmont Stakes – his graded stakes debut – having demonstrated noticeable progression in each of his three career starts.

Highly regarded early on, the dark bay son of Quality Road was fourth as the favorite on debut at Belmont Park in July, where he finished behind subsequent stakes winners Green Light Go and Another Miracle.

“We were very excited about Dr Post's maiden opportunity. He didn't run to his form and was training a lot better than he ran that day,” Viola said. “He may have hung a little bit but when we did work on him. We saw he was a little banged up. He's always been mature, easy to train, very professional. He's almost so talented that he measures up to the challenge at hand and taking our time with him proved to be the right thing to do.”

Since returning off the bench, the lightly raced Dr Post has rewarded that patience by scoring two victories this year at Gulfstream Park. After breaking his maiden on March 29 following a nearly nine-month layoff, he handled his first two-turn test with aplomb, capturing the Unbridled Stakes going 1 1/16 miles on April 25.

“If you watch his maiden win, he was really perfectly mature in the race,” Viola said. “If you watch the Unbridled Stakes, which was a decent field, he did not have an easy time and he displayed a tenacity and a real champion's heart that I hope carries him forward. People are down on the quality of the field this year, but I think these are some good horses. It's a well-stocked race. I'd love to run against [Grade 1 winners] Maxfield and Charlatan for sure, but it wasn't meant to be.”

Dr Post is named after Viola's family doctor, for whom his father was a patient, and has become close to Viola's family over the years.

“He really was a saving grace in my father's life. He had heart disease and he kept him healthy for 20 years. He became my doctor and he's really become more than just a doctor for me,” Viola said.

Dr Post , listed at 5-1 on the morning line, will attempt to make Viola's dream a reality when breaking from post 9 under Irad Ortiz, Jr.

The post Vincent Viola: ‘The Belmont Is Absolutely The Race That I Covet The Most’ appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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