MHBA, MTHA Host Tesio Talk

The Maryland Horse Breeders Association and the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association will host a Tesio Talk and continental breakfast in the International Room at Laurel Park on Federico Tesio S. day, Apr. 15.

The “Talking Tesio” event begins at 10:30 a.m. and will feature a continental breakfast followed by a panel discussion with industry leaders about Tesio's influence on the breed. Speakers include Country Life Farm's Josh Pons, J. William Boniface, the owner of Bonita Farm, and Ned Moore, owner of Corner Farm in Clark County, Virginia, bloodstock agent, and consultant for the National Sporting Library.

The Tesio, which has been held annually in Maryland since 1981, honors the great Italian breeder, owner and trainer best known for his breeding theories and his success with Nearco, who was the foundation of a sire line that includes Kentucky Derby winner and legendary stallion Northern Dancer, who stood in Maryland for many years at Windfields Farm, and Bold Ruler, sire of the great Secretariat. He also bred Ribot, a two-time winner of the prestigious Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

Tickets to the talk are free with registration before Apr. 13. For more information, call (410) 252-2100 or email bremsberg@marylandthoroughbred.com.

The post MHBA, MTHA Host Tesio Talk appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

This Side Up: The Heart of the Matter

You would think the heart has enough on its plate. It literally never gets a break, not for one second, never mind a vacation. Never a morning's fishing, a bourbon after dinner. Yet somehow we have ended up charging this most vital of our organs with a second burden, figurative but scarcely less momentous, as the vessel of love.

So when the tireless engine of life finally fails, in one we cherish, we speak of our own hearts as being “broken.” And there were many such, in Lexington on Friday, when mourners bade farewell to the distinguished veterinarian Dr. Thomas Swerczek.

We reserve to their private grief the tribute that Dr. Swerczek was evidently no less exceptional in his dedication, as a family man, than in his professional accomplishments through decades of service at the local university. For those of us outside the reach of his own heart, however, the professor's name will always evoke the epic proportions of another.

For it was Dr. Swerczek who famously conducted the necropsy, in 1989, on perhaps the greatest Thoroughbred in the story of the breed. He estimated Secretariat's heart to be twice the average size, maybe over 20 pounds. This discovery conformed so obligingly with the horse's overall prowess, with his physical magnificence and almost supernatural running power, that it nourished some pretty excitable extrapolations.

Secretariat's heart is literally the stuff of legend. It places him in the same register as warrior heroes of Norse mythology, with their limbs like cedar trees. But legend is not even history, never mind science. And the perennial quest for an edge, in our business, has allowed a whole ancillary industry of theory and analysis to be energized by the freakish heart of a freak among racehorses.

On some level, no doubt, this can only have been encouraged by the very cultural duality we just noted in the human heart. In a racehorse, of course, the metaphorical dimension is not love, but courage. But it's obviously tempting, if only subliminally, to conflate the “heart” we celebrate in a horse that gives everything in a finish with the sheer physical proportions of the organ housed in its chest. We literally describe such animals as “big-hearted”.

After all, the same intangibility unites “heart,” in the sense of competitive ardor under the whip, and the physical organ that we can only ever see for ourselves at a post-mortem. Sure, nowadays we have technology that allows external estimation of cardiac capacity. But as is axiomatic in a less decorous context, there's a limit to the satisfactions available in size alone.

Another man of science recently mourned in Kentucky, Dr. David Richardson, once cautioned me that data available across the horse population does not permit pronouncement on the specimen in front of you. And cardiac physiology, being so complex, was his chosen example.

“They talk about heart size,” he said. “But the real question is: how does it squeeze? (What's called the ejection fraction.) How fast can it pump blood? How efficiently, in terms of oxygen use? So it's not just heart, but lungs. So people try to assess that, too, on a treadmill. But that's still not like running a race at distance. But even if you could get the cardiovascular bit right, then how about the legs? And the mind? You can gauge some of those things, sometimes–but it's very hard to say how the whole package will stand up to raceday pressures.”

As it happens, Dr. Swerczek also performed the necropsy on Bold Ruler. Though he would have been one of the greatest stallions in history even without Secretariat, apparently he did not have a large heart. But you know who did? The second largest one Dr. Swerczek ever saw, at 19 pounds, belonged to none other than Secretariat's hapless punchbag, Sham.

What an amazing coincidence. But what an obvious coincidence, too. Because Dr. Swerczek performed the same procedure thousands of times, including elite athletes from many different crops. And none of them, he said, ever came close to that pair.

So instead of this inadvertent legacy, in all the controversies and occult dogmas stimulated by Secretariat's heart, let's instead celebrate the many years of unsung contribution made by Dr. Swerczek to the welfare of the animal he loved. He made vital advances in several horrible diseases that afflict the Thoroughbred and was always in the frontline trenches in the trauma of Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome.

He understood how many different factors, notably in environment and nutrition, can erode or assist the fulfilment of a racehorse. He knew that the system of flesh and blood maintained by those miraculous pumps is always too complex to permit glib answers.

Dostoyevsky identified two types of unhappy fool: the one with a heart and no sense, and the one with sense and no heart. By all means, go ahead and find out all you can about the heart. Maybe you can discern something instructive even in those of immature Thoroughbreds. But do keep your sense, all the same, along with their hearts.

Maybe ventricular capacity can indeed tell us something about stamina, caliber even, and heritability. To me, however, anything that remotely smacks of a “system,” any formula that claims to cut right through the mysteries of our vocation, deserves its place somewhere on the spectrum that starts, at one end, with snake-oil.

Science, with its scrupulous standards of evidence, will doubtless keep inching its way forwards through this whole maze. But in a business where the fast buck is never quite fast enough, some people will never want to hang around and wait.

Needless to say, we all know of highly professional horsemen exploring some of these potential edges. The responsible ones, invariably, will stress that the insights they seek can only address a single facet of what will always remain a very jagged diamond. And, actually, even the people who make it all sound very simple tend to be little more than credulous; fanatical, rather than fraudulent. But while it's a free country, and up to you how to spend your money in this very expensive game, I know what I'd suggest if anybody comes to you with a key to the single, secret lock on Thoroughbred potential. Give them your iciest smile, and wish them good day.

Apart from anything else, in claiming to be able to remove the guesswork, such people are inimical to precisely that element of inspiration which feels, to some of us anyway, most essential to the whole romance of what we do. Yes, some will be supported by wonderful gadgets; all, nowadays, by persuasive software. But give me the unadorned instinct of a seasoned horsemen, every time, and we'll see you out on that proving ground. First to the wooden stick.

The post This Side Up: The Heart of the Matter appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Bloodlines: Bella Sofia Adds To History Of Spa Success For Grey Flight And Her Descendants

There once was a mare named Grey Flight.

A foal of 1945, the gray daughter of English Derby winner Mahmoud (by Derby winner Blenheim) sold at the 1946 Saratoga select yearling sale. The filly was so fine that she brought $45,000, the highest price for a filly at the Saratoga sale 75 years ago.

The buyer was the Wheatley Stable of Gladys Mills Phipps, and Grey Flight went on to become a stakes winner at 2 and 3, earning $68,990. Better at two, when she was ranked fourth among the fillies on the Experimental Free Handicap, Grey Flight won the Autumn Days Stakes at Empire City racecourse and was second or third in a half-dozen more stakes that year, including the Frizette and the Spinaway.

Grey Flight's connections to Saratoga do not end with her sale there and good effort in the Spinaway. Most notably, the mare's daughter Bold Princess won the 1962 Schuylerville Stakes at Saratoga, and Grey Flight's son What a Pleasure won the 1967 Hopeful there.

Quite a few of Grey Flight's further descendants have won major events at the Spa over the decades, and on Aug. 7, Bella Sofia won the Grade 1 Test at Saratoga, and her fourth dam is a mare named Clear Ceiling.

Like Bold Princess and What a Pleasure, Clear Ceiling is out of Grey Flight, and all three are by the Horse of the Year and great sire Bold Ruler. When Wheatley Stable retired Bold Ruler to stud at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky, the decision was made to keep the horse, arguably the fastest son of the great sire Nasrullah, as a privately owned stallion by the breeder.

Although the common practice of the time was to syndicate prominent sire prospects, Mrs. Phipps was a woman of independent mind and fortune, and she certainly loved her horses. By keeping Bold Ruler privately owned, Wheatley took a risk by losing the profits from a syndication; the benefit of keeping him private was that Wheatley was able to arrange foal-shares for its increasingly popular sire with some of the best broodmares in the country.

As luck would have it, however, Wheatley had two of the best broodmares in the breed already in their band at Claiborne: Grey Flight and her champion daughter Misty Morn (Princequillo).

[Story Continues Below]

In all, Grey Flight produced nine stakes winners, including three by Bold Ruler, and Misty Morn produced five stakes winners, including four by Bold Ruler. Two of those were the champions Bold Lad (champion juvenile colt of 1964) and his full brother Successor (champion juvenile colt of 1966). Misty Morn had been one of the mares in Bold Ruler's first book, and she produced the filly Bold Consort, who won the 1963 Test Stakes.

One of Grey Flight's foals by Bold Ruler who didn't win a stakes was Clear Ceiling, a filly born in 1968. From 17 starts, Clear Ceiling won five races, and she became an important producer when sent to stud.

Her best racer was 1,000 Guineas winner Quick as Lightning, who proved the only winner of a top-class race bred on the cross of Horse of the Year Buckpasser to a daughter of Horse of the Year Bold Ruler.

Clear Ceiling's second and third stakes winners were Stratospheric and Infinite, by the Phipps stallion Majestic Light (Majestic Prince). Tragically, both Quick as Lightning and Stratospheric died before producing foals, but Infinite, winner of the Garden City Stakes and third in the Diana and the Yellow Ribbon, did manage to produce the minor stakes winner Polish Treaty (Danzig), as well as the three-time winner Option Contract (Forty Niner).

Option Contract is the second dam of Bella Sofia and produced the solid stakes winner Shake the Dice, who earned $523,851, and the stakes-placed Love Contract (Consolidator), who is the dam of this year's winner of the Test.

Bella Sofia is the third foal of her dam, following winners by Bullet Train and Overanalyze. Now a winner in three of her four starts, Bella Sofia has immediately brought a degree of attention to her sire, Awesome Patriot, that was missing before.

Retired to stud in Kentucky at Spendthrift Farm, Awesome Patriot (Awesome Again) is a full brother to 2013 Preakness winner Oxbow, who has his best racer to date in 2021: Hot Rod Charlie, who was home first in the G1 Haskell (then disqualified), second in the G1 Belmont Stakes, and winner of the G2 Louisiana Derby earlier in the year.

Bella Sofia is undoubtedly the best racer to represent Awesome Patriot and is the sire's fifth lifetime stakes winner from five crops of racing age. Now standing at stud in Ohio, Awesome Patriot is notable for his part in reviving the G1 quality in this branch of the historic female line of Grey Flight.

Frank Mitchell is author of Racehorse Breeding Theories, as well as the book Great Breeders and Their Methods: The Hancocks. In addition to writing the column “Sires and Dams” in Daily Racing Form for nearly 15 years, he has contributed articles to Thoroughbred Daily News, Thoroughbred Times, Thoroughbred Record, International Thoroughbred, and other major publications. In addition, Frank is chief of biomechanics for DataTrack International and is a hands-on caretaker of his own broodmares and foals in Central Kentucky. Check out Frank's Bloodstock in the Bluegrass blog.

The post Bloodlines: Bella Sofia Adds To History Of Spa Success For Grey Flight And Her Descendants appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Weekend Lineup Presented By Del Mar Ship & Win: Calm Before The Storm

Graded stakes action is light stateside in the weekend leading up to the Breeders' Cup World Championships at Keeneland, but on Sunday in Japan, seven-time G1 winner Almond Eye will start in the G1 Tenno Sho.

A pair of listed stakes are featured on opening weekend at Del Mar, one Saturday and one Sunday. Also this weekend, a pair of stakes for 2-year-olds at Woodbine will begin the roads toward the 2021 Woodbine Oaks and Queen's Plate.

Racing from Belmont Park is televised on “America's Day at the Races” on FS2. “America's Day at the Races” will also broadcast races from the Churchill Downs' fall meet.

Saturday, Oct. 31

4:57 p.m.-$100,000 Grade 3 Bold Ruler Handicap at Belmont Park

Trained by Daniel Velazquez, the 6-year-old Arch Cat will be making his 38th career start in the seven-furlong test for 3-year-olds and up on Big Sandy. The hard-knocking Arch gelding, who sports a record of 13-3-12 with purse earnings of $363,485, was claimed for $16,000 in June 2019 at Parx and has since won 6-of-14 starts for the new connections.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/BEL103120USA-EQB.html#RACE9

5:15 p.m.-$250,000 Princess Elizabeth Stakes at Woodbine

Dreaming of Drew, a two-year-old daughter of Speightster, chases her first added-money title in the $250,000 Princess Elizabeth Stakes, one of two ($100,000 Overskate) features on Saturday's 11-race card at Woodbine. Eight starters are slated to go postward in the 75th renewal of the Princess Elizabeth, a 1 1/16-mile main track race for Canadian-bred 2-year-old fillies. Trained by Barbara Minshall, who has 380 career victories, Dreaming of Drew arrives at Saturday's engagement off a fourth-place finish in the Natalma Stakes (G1T) on Sept. 20 at Woodbine.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/WO103120CAN-EQB.html#RACE9

6:30 p.m.-$75,000 Kathryn Crosby Stakes at Del Mar

The Bing Crosby Season kicks off with a salute to the classy wife of the late singer and track co-founder – Kathryn Crosby – with a stakes race named in her honor and limited to fillies and mare aged 3 and up. Pick a filly or mare in this lineup and you can make a ready case why she could or should win. Morning line maker Jon White gave just the slightest of edges for favoritism to Donnie Crevier's veteran mare Cordiality as he hung her at a lukewarm 7-2. He put Branham, Baltas or McClanahan's Colonial Creed next at 4-1, then put a 5-1 projection on four different horses. It figures to be a tight one in the wagering and just as tight out on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/DMR103120USA-EQB.html#RACE7

Sunday, Nov. 1

1:40 a.m.-about $3,104,299 G1 Tenno Sho Autumn At Tokyo Racecourse

The “Emperor's Cup,” run over 2,000 meters of turf, will feature 12 horses including seven-time Grade 1 winner Almond Eye. A total of seven Grade 1 winners will be participating, including double Tenno Sho (Spring) winner Fierement and Chrono Genesis, who crushed the competition in the Grade 1 Takarazuka Kinen at the end of June. Ages range from 4 to 6, with three females and one gelding competing against the boys.

4:48 p.m.-$250,000 Coronation Futurity at Woodbine

Eight hopefuls, including Barb Minshall trainees British Royalty and Threefiftyseven, and Gail Cox charge Tio Magico, square off in Sunday's $250,000 Coronation Futurity Stakes, at Woodbine. The 1 1/8-mile Tapeta event for Canadian-foaled 2-year-olds is a significant race on the road to the 162nd running of the Queen's Plate, first jewel of the OLG Canadian Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing.

Minshall, in the midst of a strong campaign, packs a powerful punch in the form of British Royalty and Threefiftyseven. British Royalty, an Ontario-bred son of English Channel, impressed in his career bow on October 11 at Woodbine. Under Jerome Lermyte, who once again gets the call in the Coronation Futurity, the Bruce Lunsford-owned gelding was pinched back at the start of the 1 mile and 70 yard main track race. Last of nine early, British Royalty steadily gained on his eight rivals, and was travelling well around the final turn. Sixth at the stretch call, he continued to gobble up ground and went on to a 1 ¾-length score in a time of 1:43.74.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/WO110120CAN-EQB.html#RACE8

7:00 p.m.-$75,000 Let It Ride Stakes at Del Mar

Alfred Pais homebred Margot's Boy was a tabbed a narrow 3-1 favorite in a competitive field of 10 on oddsmaker Jon White's morning line for Sunday's featured $75,000 Let It Ride Stakes at one mile on turf for 3-year-olds. A son of Clubhouse Ride out of the English-bred mare Margot Machance trained by Craig Lewis, Margot's Boy has three wins from nine career starts and earnings of $172,020. He shortens up from 1 1/8-mile assignments in the Grade II, $200,000 Del Mar Derby on September 6 (2nd) and Grade II, $200,000 Twilight Derby (7th) on October 18 at Santa Anita.

Entries: https://www.equibase.com/static/entry/DMR110120USA-EQB.html#RACE8

The post Weekend Lineup Presented By Del Mar Ship & Win: Calm Before The Storm appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights