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Blame Debbie Brings Home Searching Stakes At Pimlico

Running 12 furlongs off a 200-day layoff over a turf course that absorbed several days of rain proved no obstacle for Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Michael Cloonan, and Tim Thornton's Blame Debbie in a front-running 3 ½-length triumph in Sunday's $100,000 Searching Stakes at historic Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, M.D.

The 11th running of the 1 ½-mile Searching for fillies and mares 3 and up on the grass, back on the Maryland stakes calendar after being lost during a pandemic-shortened 2020 schedule, was the first of five stakes worth $475,000 in purses on the 10-race program.

Following the Searching were the $100,000 Prince George's County Stakes on turf, $100,000 Shine Again Stakes featuring undefeated multiple stakes winner Chub Wagon, and $100,000 Stormy Blues Stakes and $75,000 Ben's Cat Stakes, both five-furlong sprints moved from the grass to the main track.

Ridden by Victor Carrasco for trainer Graham Motion, Blame Debbie ($6.20) completed the distance in 2:38.50 over a turf course rated good. Luck Money, the 6-5 favorite, got past Crystalle nearing the wire for second, and was followed by Whatdoesasharksay, Breviary, and Proper Storm. Beautiful Lover and Scatrattleandroll were scratched.

Motion also won a division of the 2000 Searching Stakes with Confessional when the race was held at Laurel Park.

“Pimlico is my local track. I love running here. This is where we like to run,” Motion said. “And to have a stake like this, there's less and less of these distance stakes around, so it was just such a good opportunity to get started this year.”

By Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Classic winner Blame, Blame Debbie crossed the wire first in three consecutive races last year but was disqualified to third for interference in a Kentucky Downs allowance in September. She followed up with back-to-back wins at Keeneland in a 1 1/8-mile allowance and the 1 ½-mile Grade 3 Dowager Stakes, the latter going gate-to-wire and holding on by a head.

Blame Debbie hadn't run since being beaten 2 ¾ lengths when fifth following a troubled trip in the 1 3/8-mile Grade 3 Red Carpet Handicap Nov. 26 at Del Mar.

“Once she broke sharp and Victor found himself on the lead, he did a perfect job of slowing it down best he could and she got away with some pretty good fractions,” Motion said. “I think know that she's won to pretty decent stakes going 1 1/2 mile this is probably her preferred distance. I think she'll go 1 1/8, 1 ¼ mile but I really think she is a marathoner, especially when she gets fractions like she did today.”

With only Luck Money and Breviary to her outside, Blame Debbie inherited the lead and set a deliberate pace of 27.63 seconds for the opening quarter-mile and 55.29 for the half, tracked by Luck Money racing in between Whatdoesasharksay and Breviary. Carrasco didn't move on Blame Debbie until the field entered the stretch a second time, setting her down for a drive to the wire.

“Just like we talked about. [Motion] said, 'Victor, I don't see much speed so if they let you go and you relax, go for it. But if you see somebody go, she doesn't need to be on the lead,'” Carrasco said. “We planned on going and she didn't fight me much the first part. Once we passed the first wire and I peeked to the screen and I saw 27 and 55 [seconds], I was just thinking in my mind, 'This race is over.' Once we turned for home and I got after her, she just opened up and rode away from the field.”

Searching, a 1978 Hall of Fame inductee, was a bay daughter of 1937 Triple Crown champion War Admiral bred by Odgen Phipps that won the Gallorette Stakes at Pimlico in 1955 and 1957 for trainer Hirsch Jacobs, retiring with a record of 25-14-16 with $327,381 in purse earnings from 89 starts. As a broodmare, Searching also enjoyed great success with offspring such as Affectionately, an 18-time stakes winner and dam of 1970 Preakness winner Personality, and Admiring, the grand-dam of 1993 Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero.

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Blame Debbie To Make Seasonal Debut In Sunday’s Searching At Pimlico

Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Michael Cloonan and Tim Thornton's Blame Debbie, a Grade 3 winner in 2020 unraced in 6 ½ months, is scheduled to make her seasonal debut in Sunday's $100,000 Searching at Pimlico Race Course.

The 11th running of the 1 ½-mile Searching for fillies and mares 3 and up is among five stakes worth $450,000 in purses and one of four scheduled for the grass on a 10-race program. First race post time is 12:40 p.m.

Other grass stakes are the $100,000 Prince George's County at 1 1/8 miles for 3-year-olds and up, $100,000 Stormy Blues for sophomore fillies and $75,000 Ben's Cat for Maryland-bred/sired 3-year-olds and up, both sprinting five furlongs.

The lone dirt stakes, the $100,000 Shine Again for fillies and mares 3 and up, is part of the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championship (MATCH) Series and features undefeated Chub Wagon facing off against Anna's Bandit, Hello Beautiful and Dontletsweetfoolya, who have combined to win 29 races and 18 stakes.

Blame Debbie is trained by Graham Motion, who won a division of the Searching in 2000 with Confessional. The race returned to the stakes calendar in 2019 but was not run in 2020 when the schedule was altered amid the coronavirus pandemic.

By Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) winner Blame, Blame Debbie crossed the wire first in three consecutive races last year but was disqualified to third for interference in a Kentucky Downs allowance in September. She followed up with back-to-back wins at Keeneland in a 1 1/8-mile allowance and the 1 ½-mile Dowager (G3), the latter going gate-to-wire and holding on by a head.

Blame Debbie has not run since finishing fifth by less than three lengths in the 1 3/8-mile Red Carpet Handicap (G3) Nov. 26 at Del Mar, a race where she encountered trouble.

“She really had a good year last year. I'd say the [Dowager] was a bit of a surprise because it was a huge step for her,” Motion said. “I probably ran her back a little quick when we went out to California, and then we gave her a little break after that.”

Blame Debbie has been working steadily over the all-weather surface at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md. for her comeback. She has two wins and two thirds since being stretched out and switched to the turf, the Dowager victory being her only previous try at the distance.

“Grass and more distance seem to be a good combination for her,” Motion said. “It's a little bit of a gamble going a mile and a half first time back, but it seemed like a good opportunity for her and I didn't want to pass up on it. I think she's done enough.”

Victor Carrasco gets the assignment on Blame Debbie from Post 5 in a field of eight.

Also racing for the first time this year is Dr. Catherine Wills' homebred Luck Money, a stakes-winning daughter of 2010 Preakness (G1) winner and two-time champion Lookin At Lucky that has not raced since running sixth by 4 ½ lengths in the 1 ¼-mile American Oaks (G1) Dec. 26 at Santa Anita.

“We brought her out to California and she didn't have a great trip. It didn't work out as well as I would have expected, but she had been very consistent before that running in all kinds of ground – firm, soft – so it doesn't seem like she needs a special type of grass,” trainer Arnaud Delacour said. “She's coming back so going a mile and a half off the layoff is kind of a tough task, but we'll give her a race and take it from there.”

Prior to her graded debut in the American Oaks, Luck Money won an open 1 1/8-mile allowance and the 1 ½-mile Zagora at Belmont Park 29 days apart in October. Like Blame Debbie, her stakes win is Lucky Money's only previous attempt at the distance.

“She likes the distance but there's not too many spots to bring them back so I thought the timing was pretty good,” Delacour said. “We went to California mainly to get some black type in a Grade 1 because that would have been huge for her page, and that was the last Grade 1 of the year for straight 3-year-old fillies and it was going a mile and a quarter, so everything was lined up there. Unfortunately, for some reason our jock took back and started fighting with her and she never made up any ground. But, I think she's legit with that type of fillies.”

Mychel Sanchez is named on Luck Money from Post 7.

Coming in from New York are the trio of Beautiful Lover, Crystalle and Whatdoesasharksay. Gary Barber's Crystalle won the P.G. Johnson at Saratoga and was second in the Miss Grillo (G2) in 2019 and won a 1 7/16 optional claiming allowance on the grass in her 2021 debut Jan. 14 at Gulfstream Park after going winless in three 2020 starts.

Moyglare Stud Farm, Ltd.'s Beautiful Lover is a Florida-bred daughter of Arch that won the 2019 Boiling Springs at Monmouth Park in her stakes debut and has run second or third four times in seven subsequent attempts, including runner-up finishes last year in the Sunshine Millions Filly & Mare Turf, Hillsborough (G2) and Matchmaker (G3). She ended 2020 running third to Matchmaker winner Nay Lady Nay in the All Along at Laurel Park.

Burning Daylight Farms, Inc.'s Whatdoesasharksay is entered to make her 15th career start and first in a stakes in the Searching. The 5-year-old daughter of Kentucky Derby (G1) and Dubai World Cup (G1) winner Animal Kingdom was fifth, beaten 2 ½ lengths, in a 1 ¼-mile allowance over a good Belmont turf May 7.

Scatrattleandroll, unraced since winning a second-level optional claiming allowance win going a mile on the main track at Penn National March 17 and winless in four previous tries on turf, and Maryland-breds Breviary and Proper Storm round out the field.

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Grade 3 Red Carpet Draws Competitors From All Across The Country To Del Mar

Ten fillies and mares will test their lung and leg power over a mile and three eighths on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course Thanksgiving Day at Del Mar in the seventh edition of the $100,000 Red Carpet Handicap. Racing on Turkey Day traditionally starts early – 11:00 a.m. – with the thought of getting fans home in time to sit down for their big dinners. There will be no fans this year, but nonetheless the early racing holds, meaning the stakes – Race six on the eight-race program — should go off at approximately 1:30 p.m.

The Grade 3 Red Carpet has drawn a pair of east coast invaders from the potent barns of trainers H. Graham Motion and Chad Brown and they both appear to be serious contenders in the 11-panel testing. Motion's horse is Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Cloonan and Thornton's Blame Debbie, a 3-year-old daughter of Blame currently working on a three-race win streak. Brown has sent out Dubb, Madaket Stables or Wonder Stables' Orglandes, a 4-year-old French-bred filly by the Irish stallion Le Harve who clicked on Oct. 9 at Belmont Park in her second stateside start. Also coming west to handle the riding assignments on those two are a pair of top New York reinsmen, Manny Franco for Blame Debbie and Irad Ortiz, Jr. for Orglandes.

There's a trio of local ladies who plan to lead the not-in-my-backyard contingent – Barber or Wachtel Stable's California Kook, Charles or Gordon's Never Be Enough and Bederian, Kamberian or Nakkashian, et al's Going to Vegas.

California Kook has been tackling tougher of late and has been competitive while doing so. The 3-year-old Boisterous filly was second in the G1 Del Mar Oaks on August 22, then a close-up fourth to colts in the G2 Del Mar Derby on September 6 and finally fifth, beaten only three lengths, in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup at Keeneland on October 10. Thursday she'll have the saddle services of another east coaster in Joel Rosario for trainer Peter Miller.

Never Be Enough, a 5-year-old British-bred mare by Sir Percy, tallied on opening day (Oct. 31) of the Bing Crosby Season in the Kathryn Crosby Stakes at a mile on the grass. The stretch runner has reeled off three victories in a row in the past three months, two of them against allowance horses at Golden Gate Fields. Tiago Pereira was aboard the chestnut for her Kathryn Crosby score and trainer Manuel Badilla will have him on once more on Thanksgiving.

Going to Vegas has turned in a series of sharp efforts of late while just missing finding the winner's circle. The 3-year-old by Goldencents most recently missed in a photo to the tough filly Warren's Showtime in the G3 Autumn Miss Stakes on the lawn Oct. 17 at Santa Anita. Trainer Richard Baltas sticks with her regular rider of late, Mario Gutierrez.

Here's the full field for the Red Carpet from the rail out with riders:

California Kook; Never Be Enough; Branham, Baltas or McClanahan's Colonial Creed (Flavien Prat); Orglandes; Going to Vegas; St George Farm Racing's Woodfin (Jose Valdivia, Jr.); Jay Em Ess Stable's Aunt Lubie (Victor Espinoza); Blame Debby; C R K Stable's Hollywood Girl (Mike Smith), and Hronis Racing's Quick (Umberto Rispoli).

Trainer Motion won the Red Carpet with his mare Rusty Slippers in 2015. The stakes record for the 11-furlong distance was set by India Mantuana in winning the 2018 edition of this race in 2:14.50. The course record was set by Spring House in 2008 at 2:11.14.

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Del Mar’s Red Carpet Stakes Has Eastern Flavor; TVG’s Hoover Savors 2019 Victory By $8,000 Claim

The field of 10 for the Thanksgiving Day featured Red Carpet Stakes includes four horses that last raced in New York or Kentucky on assignment from nationally-renowned trainers. Three of them will have elite Eastern-based jockeys that venture west only when the stakes are most plentiful and highest – as they will be through the four final days of the Bing Crosby Season.

So the Grade 3, $100,000 Red Carpet figures to be a tasty hors d'oeuvre for the feast that will follow—six graded stakes on grass in three days in what amounts to a “Turf Festival” – to the November 29 close of the meeting.

Three notable equine travelers for the 1 3/8-mile Red Carpet marathon for fillies and mares are Orglandes for one of the nation's leading trainers, Chad Brown, Woodfin for Victoria Oliver and Blame Debbie for H. Graham Motion. And Peter Miller has had California Kook, runner-up in the G1 Del Mar Oaks last summer, in training at San Luis Rey Downs for a month since returning from a fifth-place finish in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup on October 10 at Keeneland.

Irad Ortiz, Jr., No. 1 in North America for purse earnings with nearly $20 million, will ride Orglandes, a 4-year-old import from France making her third U.S. start and coming in off a win at Belmont Park on October 9. Joel Rosario, No. 2 in winnings with nearly $17 million, has the call on California Kook. Manny Franco, No. 10 with more than $11.4 million will be aboard Blame Debbie after their initial collaboration resulted in victory in the G3 Dowager at Keeneland last month.

The field from the rail with jockeys in parenthesis: California Kook (Rosario); Never Be Enough (Tiago Pereira); Colonial Creed (Flavien Prat); Orglandes (Ortiz, Jr.); Going to Vegas (Mario Gutierrez); Woodfin (Jose Valdivia, Jr.); Aunt Lubie (Victor Espinoza); Blame Debbie (Franco); Hollywood Girl (Mike Smith), and Quick (Umberto Rispoli).

When TVG commentator Kurt Hoover saw the entries come out for the Red Carpet, he took special interest in looking over the field. Partly out of professional obligation, of course, but also for sentimental reasons.

“It's a race that doesn't mean a hell of a lot to a lot of people, but it does to me,” Hoover said by phone from the Los Angeles area.

Hoover, his friend from high school days Brian Ferguson and Jeff Lambert of Del Mar, a longtime client of trainer Bob Hess, Jr., comprised the ownership group of Zuzanna, an $8,000 claim of theirs that they watched win the 2019 Red Carpet at odds of 23-1.

“I remember watching her cross under the finish line and I remember being in the winner's circle, but I don't remember going down to the winner's circle,” said Hoover. It was the first stakes win as an owner for Hoover, who said he has had pieces of four or five horses with only Zuzanna succeeding at the stakes level.

“I suggested to Bob that we enter because I thought maybe we could hit the board,” Hoover recalled. “If it hadn't been a mile and three-eighths we wouldn't have entered. We were planning on going to the Claiming Crown (event) in Florida with her.”

The traditional Thanksgiving Day feature of the Bing Crosby Season was moved to Saturday in 2019 after rains early in the week compromised the Jimmy Durante Turf Course. That resulted in Paco Lopez, arriving from the east, being able to ride Zuzanna skillfully to a 1 ½-length victory.

After more than 30 career starts, Zuzanna has recently been retired and will be sold as a broodmare in January.

For the first time in 30 years, Hoover has a Thanksgiving Day off from work. But he said he'll be watching the Red Carpet with professional and sentimental interest.

“I like John Sadler's horse Quick,” Hoover said when asked for a 2020 selection. “Her last outing was a really good effort and I think she's ready to run big. Besides Quick, I think Graham Motion's horse coming in from Kentucky, Blame Debbie, will be very tough.”

In Thursday's edition, trainer Richard Baltas has the duo of Going to Vegas and Colonial Creed. Going to Vegas comes in off a runner-up effort, beaten only a neck by Warren's Showtime, in the G3 Autumn Miss at Santa Anita. Colonial Creed was second in the Katherine Crosby Stakes on the opening day of this meeting.

“Going To Vegas ran really good last time with the blinkers off,” Baltas noted. “It's a little far for her, but if she can get the distance, who knows? Obviously she's in a little tough because she's a 3-year-old running against older, but we're going to see because she's training really well.

“Colonial Creed has never been this far either, but she's coming off the pace now more and more, so maybe she will like the distance. I think they've both got a good chance.”

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