Bill Finley | Horse Racing Free Tips

An Offshoot of MyRacehorse, Edge Racing Off to a Fast Start

As the MyRacehorse syndicate continued to grow, the team there kept hearing what became a familiar refrain from some of its many partners. They wanted something more.

While the microshare concept proved to be innovative and popular, there are some limitations when you might own only a tiny fraction of a horse. With that in mind, last fall, MyRacehorse created a spinoff business, launching Edge Racing. Edge is more along the lines of traditional partnerships, which may include about a dozen owners instead of several hundred or even a thousand.

“As MyRacehorse grew and developed, people started wanting a little bit more,” said Joe Moran, the stable manager for Edge Racing, who also oversees MyRacehorse's contingent in California. “We saw people venturing off, whether going to other partnerships or going out on their own. We decided to put this new group together. We wanted to give people the sort of service and experience that comes along with owning a larger share of a horse. We wanted to let them take the next step in ownership.”

Just nine months after its inception, Edge Racing has burst out of the gate, in large part thanks to its star horse, Yes This Time (Not This Time), who is entered in Saturday $1-million GI Saratoga Derby Invitational. A winner of five straight, the colt will be facing the biggest test of his career.

“He deserves a shot to go against the best,” Moran said.

Back in the winter, Moran was scouting around for good candidates to add to the Edge Racing roster and came upon Yes This Time. He was coming off a win in a $30,000 maiden claiming race at Fair Grounds in his first try on the grass. Knowing that he was eligible for plenty of winnable races, Moran made the purchase, paying $100,000 for the colt. Edge Racing sold 10% shares in the horse and brought in six partners.

“This was a horse I found from browsing the races on a daily basis,” Moran said. “We thought he was coming off an impressive performance and we thought he had a lot of potential with his pedigree. But did I think we'd be running in a $1-million Grade I seven months down the road? Maybe not quite. He had run in a maiden claimer so he had multiple conditions left. That was really the play, to take advantage of those conditions.”

Kelly Neely was among the first to sign up for a piece of Yes This Time.

“I had had a lot to do with the Standardbred business for decades, but I wanted the real horses,” she said. “I didn't want to buy them myself. I went to sales and kept studying for about three years. I said to myself, 'Wow, I need to get involved in a partnership.' I went to MyRacehorse and after I bought a few microshares, thought I want a real percentage. They put me in touch with Joe Moran and it's been a wonderful ride.”

Edge Racing looks to keep its partners informed and involved. They hold bi-weekly Zoom meetings so that Moran can fill in each owner on the latest developments with the stable and because they own a large enough interest to get an owner's badge they can visit their horses on the backstretch any time they please.

Now trained by Kelly Breen, Yes This Time finished fourth in a Jan. 21 starter allowance at Gulfstream in his debut for Edge Racing. He hasn't lost since. After winning another starter allowance, he captured an allowance race at Gulfstream and then the English Channel S. He showed up next at Delaware Park for the GIII Kent S, which he won by a length.

“The fact that we are in this race at Saratoga and we belong in this race is overwhelming to me,” Neely said. “It's a dream come true.”

Yes This Time is one of nine horses currently owned by Edge Racing. The horses are spread around the country, in California, Texas, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York and Florida. The stable got off to a quick start, winning with its first starter, Escape Route (Hard Spun). He was claimed for $40,000 out of an Oct. 10, 2020 maiden claimer at Keeneland and came right back to win a starter allowance at Del Mar. The stable also includes In Due Time (Not This Time). A $95,000 purchase at the Ocala Breeders' Sale Spring Sale, he won a July maiden special weight race in his debut. He is also trained by Breen.

While the selling of microshares will remain the company's core business, Moran said the MyRacehorse team believes Edge Racing will eventually knock heads with more well-known syndicates, like West Point, Starlight and Eclipse Thoroughbreds.

“I think we can turn this into one of the top traditional syndicates around the nation,” he said. “We've already had some short-term success. From a brand standpoint, we haven't marketed a ton. We have kept this close knit because we really want to let the people involved know exactly what they are getting into. We want to be all around the country and get people involved, to get people to love horse racing. That's our thing. We have so much passion for the game and that's what we're trying to bring to all our new owners out there.”

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A Winner of 7,396 Races, Jockey Dave Gall Passes

The fifth-leading rider of all time in wins, David Gall passed away Sunday at the age of 79.

The news was confirmed by his former agent, Mark Cooper.

Riding primarily at Fairmount Park (now known as Fanduel Sportsbook & Horse Racing) and now-defunct Cahokia Downs, two lower-level Illinois tracks that serve the St. Louis area, Gall rode for 43 years and piled up 7,369 wins, more than Hall of Famers like Chris McCarron, Angel Cordero Jr. and Jorge Velasquez. Yet, because he never ventured to the major tracks, Gall's accomplishments went largely unnoticed outside of the St. Louis area.

He had 41,775 career mounts. He was twice leading rider in the country, winning 479 races in 1979 and 376 in 1981. He once won eight races on a 10-race card at Cahokia Downs.

Despite all his success, he never tried to break in at higher- level tracks. According to equineline.com, he won only one graded stakes race, the 1993 GIII Fairmount Derby.

“In my mid-30s, I realized I wasn't going to make it big,” he told the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, of which he is a member. “I never joined the rat race because I don't like rat races. I like horse races.”

“He would have been a decent rider on the major circuits,” said Dave Johnson, the announcer at Fairmount and Cahokia from 1965 through 1971. “At Fairmount and Cahokia, he could ride rings around the other jockeys. He was just better than the regular riders. And when the kids or the apprentices showed up, he would fool them in the stretch. He would make them think that his horse was finished and they were going to win it. Then he would speed up and win the race. He undressed them. Remember, these were the bush tracks, a big step down from Arlington Park.

Born in Rose Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada, Gall lied about his age so that he could begin riding professionally at age 15. He started off at the tracks in Western Canada before making it to St. Louis. He said the Illinois tracks were not his final destination and he wanted to try major tracks elsewhere, but he decided to stay because he immediately started winning races and making money.

It was there that he earned the nickname “The General.” It was given to him by track announcer Todd Creed, who noticed that when Gall's name was abbreviated as “D. Gall” it sounded exactly the same as renowned French General Charles de Gaulle.

He last rode in 1999, calling it a career at age 57. At the time, he trailed only Bill Shoemaker, Laffit Pincay Jr. and Pat Day for total career wins.

“It's not as much fun as it used to be,” he said when announcing his retirement.

He turned to training and won 157 races in his new profession. He left training in 2011.

He is also a member of the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame and was the 1966 recipient of the Avelino Gomez Memorial Award.

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Eric Gustavson Joins the TDN Writers’ Room

Following the tragic loss of Coolmore's cornerstone stallion Galileo, champion sire Into Mischief has suddenly found himself at center stage as the top stallion in the world in just about every category. On this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland, the crew sat down with Eric Gustavson of Spendthrift Farm, a new sponsor of the show, to talk about their rise of success with the son of Harlan's Holiday.

“For us to have Into Mischief is the classic case of how a rising tide lifts all boats,” said Gustavson, who joined in as the Green Group Guest of the Week. “He's our rising tide and he brings so much attention to the farm. He's so powerful and dominant in so many categories as a stallion and it's mind blowing that you could ever have one like this. That he is considered one of the all-time greats, if not the best in the world, is really humbling.”

Gustavson, who serves on the Board of the Directors for Breeders' Cup, also spoke out on racing's urgent need for change.

“The industry is so fractious…with the issues of lack of uniformity in medications and things like that,” he said. “The industry cannot grow unless these things start to change. We need to have innovation. We need to have inclusion. We need to have uniformity to the point where we're not dysfunctional and referring to a weak regulatory system. These are the kinds of things that I would like to help change because we're just stuck. There is a lot of talk about the pros and cons of the government coming in and being involved with control over the drug issues. A lot of people are against it, but my feelings are that we have to do something and if this is the only way to do it, then so be it. Let's have the uniformity and have some kind of oversight that has some teeth.”

Elsewhere on Wednesday's podcast, which welcomed the Minnesota Thoroughbred Association 2021 Yearling Sale in joining additional sponsors West Point Thoroughbreds and Legacy Bloodstock, the writers recapped another great week of racing at Saratoga, discussed the recent controversy with trainer Marcus Vitali and looked forward to this weekend's racing at the Spa and beyond.

Click here to watch the podcast on YouTube.

Click here for the audio-only version.

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Phenom Flightline Gearing Up for Del Mar

It's been a quiet 10-plus weeks for 'TDN Rising Star' Flightline (Tapit), who has not been heard from since his electrifying debut on Apr. 24 at Santa Anita. But that's about to change. He's had four workouts since June 9 and trainer John Sadler says the 3-year-old colt is almost ready to go and will reappear sometime during the upcoming Del Mar meet.

Flightline left little doubt in his debut that he is as talented as anyone in the 3-year-old male division. Ridden by Flavien Prat, he won the six-furlong race by 13 1/4 lengths and earned a 105 Beyer figure, despite being geared down in the lane. Among the current 3-year-old crop, only Essential Quality (Tapit), Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) and Life Is Good (Into Mischief) have run faster this year.

“This horse has all the potential in the world,” Sadler said.

With Flightline having debuted at six furlongs in late April, Sadler knew he didn't have enough time to get the horse ready for the Triple Crown races, but it appeared that he might be able to make a race like the GI Runhappy Travers S. on Aug. 28 at Saratoga. But Sadler had other ideas. With a horse that had this much talent but was so lightly raced, the trainer decided the best approach was to be extra cautious. Between April 18 and June 9, he did not have a published workout.

“The time off was by design,” Sadler said. “It was a super effort first time out and I felt strongly that he needed time to recuperate from that race, even though he had gotten to the races late. You talk to the numbers guys and they'll tell you that when you run that brilliantly the first time you shouldn't be in any hurry to run them back. So, off that big effort, we decided to give him a little time off.”

Should Flightline race some time during the early weeks of the Del Mar meet, it would seem plausible that he could be pointed for the Travers or, perhaps the GI Pennsylvania Derby. But Sadler isn't looking at those races. After being so patient for so long, he's not about to rush things.

“My thinking is that we have a horse that has so much ability that we should take it one day at a time,” he said. “We are not going to be in a hurry.”

Flightline was a $1-million purchase from the Lane's End consignment at the 2019 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale and is owned by the partnership of Hronis Racing LLC, Siena Farm LLC, Summer Wind Equine and West Point Thoroughbreds. Summer Wind is also the horse's breeder. Last year, he was a week or so away from being sent to Sadler's barn when he had an accident that delayed his debut.

“He had an accident in the paddock and has this big huge scar on his butt,” the trainer said. “It wasn't a major setback, but it was a setback.”

Sadler has never won a Triple Crown race or the Travers, but said he has never been tempted to rush Flightline. A trainer who has had a number of top older dirt males, he'll be perfectly content if Flightline doesn't have his coming out party until late December or even next year. Sadler said that if the colt continues to progress the Dec. 26 GI Malibu S. could be a possibility.

“To me, with horses, you've got to roll with the punches,” he said. “You can't force it. He had some setbacks at two and we had to wait to get him to the races, so the Triple Crown races were out. That's just the way it is. It's always tempting, but I'm an old-school guy. The idea is to win the right races when the time comes. If he's as good as we think he is we will be fine.”

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