TB Makeover Puts Maryland-Breds On Display For Talbot Run

Partnerships in racing are nothing new. The days are upon us where programs are filled with syndicates and lists of names that can rival even the race entries themselves. It's a way to spread risk, cost and reward across multiple parties while increasing the comradery of racing. And while those partnerships are oftentimes consolidated in the form of a sale at the end of a horse's career, the 2023 Retired Racehorse Project's Thoroughbred Makeover event has given opportunity for new kinds of teams to form, even across industries.

Enter Gina Robb, trainer and co-owner of Maryland's No Guts No Glory Farm. The daughter of a jockey, Gina has spent her life around racing including marrying fellow trainer Jerry Robb. Together, the pair is responsible for $800,000-earner Anna's Bandit (Great Notion) who reported her first foal, a Tapit colt, this spring. Early this year, Gina had a quartet of horses ready to come off the track to pursue second careers along with a broodmare who'd been down on her reproductive luck and in need of perhaps a third career. Gina also had a teenage daughter conveniently taking lessons at Talbot Run Equestrian Center and, with the help of Talbot Run's head trainer Robin Petrasek, a new alliance was formed.

“I went to Robin [one day] and said 'hey, I've got a few off-track thoroughbreds and I'd really love to do something',” said Robb. “So we got together and I supplied the horses and Robin and I decided 'okay, let's try this.'

Next week, a team of five horses and riders from Talbot Run will travel to Kentucky to take on hundreds of other ex-racehorses across ten disciplines over a three-day event. Petrasek's program is a bit unique in that it has allowed each rider, the other four being amateurs, to train their own horses.

“We decided to kind of gear towards helping juniors learn how to retrain the horses,” said Petrasek. “So it's kind of a teaching and building program so that we can build up their interest in the industry and shine awareness on what it takes and where these horses came from.”

Seany P cleans up at the World Equestrian Center | Talbot Run Photo

The Talbot Run team, consisting of Petrasek, CC Forgione, Gretchen Wolfe, Chloe Pleune and Angelina Rosenthal, will display four Maryland-bred horses and one Kentucky-bred broodmare. Petrasek and her mount Seany P (Nicanor) will compete in Dressage and Freestyle while Forgione will take the full-brother to Anna's Bandit, Little Bold Bandit (Great Notion), in Competitive Trail. The other three riders will compete in the youth divisions: Wolfe aboard Vampish (Bodemeister) in the Broodmare division along with Eventing and Show Jumping, Pleune with Scintillio (Uncle Lino) also in Eventing and Show Jumping and Rosenthal, Gina Robb's daughter, with Belfour (Super Saver) in Eventing and Show Jumping as well.

“Gina provided us with five horses that have a high potential for sport,” added Petrasek. “It's not only been good in that aspect, but also that the horses have been very safe, especially for the kids to handle.”

“It's great we take these awesome horses into a second career,” continued Robb. “My husband retires them early before they're not able to do any of these things. And that's important because the other [entries], they have to sit on for a long time before they finally feel well enough.”

In speaking to the importance of the Makeover's new Broodmare division, Robb was nothing but complimentary.

“There are a lot of farms out there with mares like her [Vampish] and I think this division is going to be a God send. They're older, they've already raced and raised their babies and now we're setting them up for potentially a third career. It's exciting because people need to know that [these mares] can have another job. I'm very excited about it.”

And while the team has their work cut out for them in what will be large and competitive divisions in Kentucky, both women maintain that a safe, happy experience for all is the priority.

“Our main goal at the end of all this is to have safe horses for our lesson program,” said Petrasek. “The Makeover is an opportunity to showcase what they want to do but, no matter what the outcome is, they've all come so far with these horses. They hadn't done anything except race and now look at what they can do.”

Robb hopes a continuing alliance between track and barn will lead to an avenue of new youth into racing.

“I want these young kids to get into the business,” she admitted with a laugh. “We need to find some new-timers and let them see what it's like to do these things. I'm hoping it sparks them.”

Talbot Run had the pleasure of a behind-the-scenes tour of Laurel Park earlier this Spring and, from all accounts, Robb may have gotten her wish.

Vampish, Scintillo and Belfour at the Maryland State Fair TB Show | Talbot Run Photo

“Some of the girls have already signed up to come get a license to gallop horses when they're old enough,” she said. “I tell the moms that that's the best place to start. Riding in a ring is very different to riding on the track but these girls are very, very capable so they'll make the transition easier. I'd like to say I might have been able to bring an upcoming jockey on!”

The Thoroughbred Makeover, which runs from Oct. 11 to Oct. 14 at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY, does allow trainers to also market their horses. But Talbot Run's entries will return home to Maryland where they'll join the lesson program and maybe just inspire next year's team and a new generation of racing fans.

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First Foal For Maryland Million Champion Anna’s Bandit

Anna's Bandit (Great Notion) produced her first foal Jan. 10. The new colt by Tapit was also the first reported to the Maryland Horse Breeders Association this year. Bred by her trainer Jerry Robb, she was foaled in West Virginia. Winning 17 of 39 starts, including 11 stakes, while earning $806,655 over six seasons for the Robb's No Guts No Glory Farm, the highlight of her career was a victory in the 2019 Maryland Million Distaff S. at Laurel Park. She was the winningest horse in the nation that same year, scoring in nine of her 11 starts. The nine year old will visit Frosted for 2023.

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Stakes Winner Anna’s Bandit Retired

No Guts No Glory Farm's 7-year-old mare Anna's Bandit, whose resume includes 11 stakes wins at three different tracks in two states as well as purse earnings of $806,655 over six seasons, has been retired from racing and will become a broodmare.

Bred and owned and trained by Maryland-based John 'Jerry' Robb and his wife, Gina, and ridden in 33 of her 39 lifetime starts by Xavier Perez, Anna's Bandit retires with a career record of 17 wins, five seconds, and eight thirds.

The Maryland Jockey Club will honor Anna's Bandit with a retirement ceremony between races during the 37th Jim McKay Maryland Million Day program Oct. 23 at Laurel Park.

“We're very excited. It's always hard, especially with a horse like Anna that's done so much, that you have to make this decision,” Gina Robb said. We couldn't be prouder of her. Now she's coming home and I'm so grateful, I really am.

“She means the world to us. She's like one of our children, basically. I think anybody who breeds horses can kind of relate to that, especially when it's a mom and pop kind of thing like we are,” she added. “We're a little operation. They're all there with us on the farm, and bringing her home to the farm that we built means so much to us. I'm really happy for her that she had such an incredible career, and now she's able to start over in a new chapter.”

In her most recent race, the daughter of Great Notion out of the No Armistice mare Onearmedbandit ran fifth in a six-furlong optional claiming allowance July 26 at Colonial Downs in New Kent, Va., behind fellow multiple stakes winner Never Enough Time.

“We were pretty much decided that this was going to be her last year regardless, it didn't matter if she was good, bad, or indifferent,” Gina Robb said. “She came out of that Colonial race a little tired, and we were kind of shaking our heads because we thought it was one of her easier spots.

“When she came back from Colonial, we just kind of didn't like the way she was going,” she added. “She doesn't have anything major where we had to stop her, but I think in all of our minds and our hearts and how much she means to us, we really didn't want to take any more chances.”

Perez, who reached 1,000th career wins in June at Delaware Park in Wilmington, Del., rode Anna's Bandit to 14 wins, four seconds, and seven thirds, and all but $114,540 of her purse earnings. Other jockeys to ride Anna's Bandit were Eric Camacho and Katie Davis in 2016 and 2017 and Gerald Almodovar in the May 29, 2020 Original Gold at Charles Town in Charles Town, W.Va., her last win.

“She deserves it,” Perez said of retirement. “She doesn't owe anything to anybody. She did her job and she made us proud. She's safe and where she belongs. I'm happy for her.”

In 2019, Anna's Bandit won nine of 11 starts and more than $400,000 in purses, tying for the most wins of any horse in North America. Her career stakes wins included the 2018 and 2019 Conniver, 2019 Maryland Million Distaff and 2019 Politely at Laurel Park in Laurel, Md., and 2019 Timonium Distaff.

In West Virginia, where she was bred, Anna's Bandit won the Down Town Allen and Sadie Hawkins in 2018; Original Gold, Sadie Hawkins, and West Virgina Cavada Breeders' Classic in 2019; and Original Gold in 2020.

Her Maryland Million win came just a week after Anna's Bandit won the Cavada, a feat Gina Robb felt was at the top of a laundry list of accomplishments.

“That one year that when she won all those stakes, it was kind of like a blur,” she said. “After she won the West Virginia-bred race and came back in seven days … I have the goosebumps thinking of it. That had to be the most incredible of all the races.”

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Anna's Bandit also placed in 10 other stakes, including a third behind Majestic Reason and Victim of Love in the 2020 Grade 3 Runhappy Barbara Fritchie, her lone graded-stakes attempt. Majestic Reason was a three-time stakes winner that was retired following the race, while Victim of Love went on to win back-to-back editions of the Grade 3 Vagrancy in 2020 and 2021 and run third in the 2020 Grade 1 Ballerina.

“She's amazing. She's always going to be one of the best horses I ever rode, or anybody rode,” Perez said. “They don't come around too often. You have to be lucky and be in the right place at the right time. It worked out for me.”

Anna's Bandit's success has been nothing short of remarkable. She showed she was special early on, debuting with a 6 ¾-length maiden special weight triumph May 6, 2016 at Laurel Park in Laurel, Md., and jumping straight into stakes company. She finished third in the Astoria at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., and second in the Debutante at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., the latter in July, before going to the sidelines.

She went 14 ½ months between races, the result of multiple operations to repair leg injuries that went undiagnosed during her formative years.

Anna's Bandit was limited to four starts in 2020, due to both the coronavirus pandemic that paused live racing in Maryland for 2 ½ months from mid-March to late May, and a minor foot issue in late summer that prompted Robb to give her the rest of the year off. She began this year running fifth in the June 13 Shine Again at historic Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md., and second in the July 10 Dashing Beauty at Delaware Park.

Plans call for Anna's Bandit to be bred in 2022, though the details have yet to be worked out.

“We are just trying to get over the fact that she's retired. We do have time to discuss where we're going on February 15th, because we plan on trying to get her in foal early,” Gina Robb said. “We would like to ship her and bring her home and not have her stay anywhere else. I don't know that I'm ready to let her go. I'm just getting her back.

“I think the first year we might keep her local, to a Maryland sire or on the East Coast, somewhere close so we can ship and go and keep her home where I don't have to worry about anything else. I'm very excited to be a part of her broodmare career, and to have her first foal on this farm is going to be one remarkable day.”

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘I Can’t Imagine Doing Anything Else’

Disruption is the name of the racing game in Maryland at the moment, with a massive overhaul of Laurel Park's racing surface forcing trainers to find other accommodations to condition their equine charges. For veteran trainer Jerry Robb, it's been his above average afternoon successes that have kept him from wanting to throw in the towel. 

“I had a really good month last month,” he explained. “With only 26 horses, we won 10 races last month, and another six or seven this month.”

Driving back and forth between Timonium and Delaware Park to oversee his split string of horses has been hard on both Robb's mind and his wallet, but at the end of the day, the long-time horseman wouldn't have it any other way.

“I'm probably not ever going to retire,” Robb said, adding: “They'll probably just stick me in the ground one morning at post time!”

With several top-quality horses in the barn, Robb hopes that day remains well in the future. Filling his stalls are the seven-time stakes-winning 3-year-old filly Street Lute, $780,000 earner Anna's Bandit, and the latter's 2-year-old half-sister, first-out winner Bandits Warrior.

“That's what keeps you going, having nice horses in the barn,” said Robb. “There are definitely hard days, especially dealing with trying to find help and all this driving. But, getting back in the winner's circle, there's just nothing like it.”

Street Lute won the June 13 Stormy Blues Stakes at Pimlico, already her seventh stakes win from 11 career starts. Robb selected the daughter of Street Magician for just $10,500 as a yearling at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearling sale, and she's already earned over $190,000 on the track.

“She's Maryland-bred, Delaware-certified, and Virginia-certified,” Robb explained. “Being able to run her in those (restricted stakes) spots has been helpful, though she's won in some open spots too. She'll run at Colonial next.”

Street Lute wins the Stormy Blues Stakes at Pimlico Race Course.

Anna's Bandit ran on the same card, finishing fifth in the Shine Again Stakes in first start since July of 2020. The 7-year-old West Virginia-bred has won a total of 11 stakes races in her career, and even ran third in the G3 Barbara Fritchie Stakes last February.

“She'd been ready to run for two months, but she'll have needed the race,” Robb said. “It's been hard to find a spot for her, but we'll keep her in the Maryland and West Virginia-bred races for a while.”

As a homebred for his wife, Gina, under the banner No Guts No Glory Farm, Anna's Bandit has been a major boon for Robb's stable. She is out of the No Armistice mare One Armed Bandit, a Robb-selected $13,500 yearling whom he trained to earn over $300,000 on the track. In 2019, she won nine of her 11 starts, all but one in a stakes race, to be named the co-winningest horse of the year.

Anna's Bandit's sire, Great Notion, commanded a stud fee of just $3,500 when she was conceived. 

Anna's Bandit winning the 2019 Maryland Million Distaff

“We've always dealt with bottom of the barrel horses in terms of prices,” Robb said. “Mostly I've been lucky I guess, there's no real art to it. It doesn't matter how cheap they are, they've got to have the heart and the willpower. You saw that with the Kentucky Derby winner this year.”

The top horse in Robb's training history remains Maryland Thoroughbred Hall of Famer Little Bold John, another “bottom-barrel” horse conceived from a $1,500 stud fee out of a mare Robb traded for. The impressive Little Bold John raced 105 times with 38 wins and almost $2 million in earnings before being retired in 1993. His 25 stakes wins were a Maryland-bred record until surpassed by Ben's Cat in 2016.

“It's something I'm extremely proud of, that I've won a stakes race nearly every year since 1980,” Robb said. 

Robb saddled his first winner with Hail Aristocrat at Penn National in 1973, and he was named Maryland Trainer of the Year in 1992. Robb registered a career-high 114 wins in 1988 and has reached the $1 million mark in seasonal earnings 14 times, with a high of $2.3 million in 2002. A four-time meet-leading trainer in Maryland, Robb overall has had more than 12,500 starters and $39 million in purses earned

He has won nine career graded-stakes, five of them courtesy of Little Bold John from 1987-89. Other graded winners are He Is Risen, Lightning Paces, Pioneer Boy and Debt Ceiling, his most recent, in the 2013 Bashford Manor (G3).

He also has a strong history of representing horsemen. He served on the Maryland Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association Board of Directors in the late 1970s, and was later involved in the co-founding of the MTHA. In the late 1980s, he implemented the first condition book index that the country had ever seen.

“I got started as a gallop boy for James McGill at Marlboro Racetrack, and eventually I bought a couple horses and he taught me how to train them,” Robb said. “It's just grown from there, and now I can't imagine doing anything else.”

When he achieved his 2,000th training victory last February, Robb explained that the milestone means more than words can express for his small operation.

“It means a lot, because I've always had a small outfit, 20-30 horses,” he said. “We never had the big outfit that gets those kinds of numbers. We had to grind it out, 50 a year. That's what we do and, hopefully, I win 50 more [this] year.”

Trainer Jerry Robb celebrates his 2,000th career victory

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