Chris McGrath | Horse Racing Free Tips

Messier First to Spread Sam-Son Legacy

Here we are, then, in what Oliver Hardy could only call “another nice mess.” But let's disentangle this flourishing sapling Messier (Empire Maker) from the tentacles that may restrain him from a timely bloom on the first Saturday in May, and take a moment to celebrate not only the storied nursery that cultivated his family but also the alert grafting that now involves another farm in his future success.

For this horticultural analogy permits only one classification of the spectacular GIII Robert S. Lewis S. winner–as a young maple. Messier represents a fifth generation of breeding by Sam-Son, the iconic Canadian farm that began a poignant process of disbandment last winter, nearly half a century after its foundation by Ernie Samuel. With 84 Sovereign Awards, 14 Grade I winners and four Eclipse Awards, Samuel and his heirs–latterly with the skilled assistance of long-serving farm manager David Whitford–had by then created an indelible legacy in the North American Thoroughbred. This had been freshly condensed by the 2019 GI Kentucky Derby winner Country House (Lookin At Lucky), whose grandsire Smart Strike was out of a daughter of Samuel's foundation mare No Class (Nodouble); and whose second dam was by her son Sky Classic (Nijinsky).

Among the 21 Sam-Son mares that realized $6.75 million at the 2021 Keeneland January Sale–supplementing the $3.45 million banked by four headline acts at Fasig-Tipton a few weeks previously–was an 11-year-old daughter of Smart Strike, Checkered Past, a dual winner of the listed Trillium S. at Woodbine and offered in foal to Candy Ride (Arg). Her catalog page listed two unraced daughters, plus a colt from what had meanwhile proved to be the penultimate crop of Empire Maker. He had been sold as a yearling, at Fasig-Tipton the previous September, to a syndicate of Bob Baffert's patrons for $470,000.

That price caught the eye of Hunter Simms and Kitty Day of Warrendale, who were scouting the dispersal on behalf of Silesia Farm. They noted that the mare's first foal, a filly by Uncle Mo, had made only $22,000; her second daughter, also by Empire Maker, had made $200,000.

“So to see that colt sitting there on $470,000, that piqued our interest,” Simms recalls. “We really liked this mare: a daughter of Smart Strike, and going down the page you saw Catch the Thrill (A.P. Indy), Diamond Fever (Seeking the Gold), Seeking the Ring (Seeking the Gold). I mean, all very nice horses; and she had all the attributes Kitty and I like to see when we're purchasing mares for people. But a lot of the draw was that Empire Maker, and the connections that he sold to. Donato [Lanni, agent] has a very good eye, and we knew where the horse was going to be trained. And then you had who she was in foal to, and the fact that she was still a younger mare. We just felt there was a lot of upside, if things went a certain way.”

Checkered Past prior to the Sam-Son dispersal | Sam-Son Farm

How much upside, however, nobody could have guessed when Silesia Farm landed Checkered Past for $290,000. Setting aside a failed experiment with blinkers in the GII Los Alamitos Futurity, failing to settle, Messier has made seamless progress toward the top of the crop–which is arguably where he finds himself, at this point, after Sunday's 15-length rout. Don't forget that the horse he had beaten in what seemed a thin field for the GIII Bob Hope S., Forbidden Kingdom (American Pharoah), has meanwhile put away three of Messier's barnmates in the GII San Vicente S. Wherever you stand regarding his trainer's difficulties, you have to admire the way Messier has developed from goofy kid in his first sprint to this machine gliding clear along the rail, and there can only be more to come at the Derby trip.

The Silesia Farm team are duly delighted to have introduced his dam to their program with such opportune timing. They are headed by Dr. Hartmut Malluche, a professor of medicine at the University of Kentucky and a distinguished achiever in the fields of nephrology, osteology and metabolism. (His German origins, incidentally, are proudly apparent in his racing silks, combining the black, red and gold of the national flag.)

“Dr. Malluche has been a client of ours for seven or eight years now,” Simms explains. “It's a boutique operation, over on the corner of Military and Shannon Run, and this year we've booked 10 mares for him. He really focuses on quality. He's a numbers guy: he looks at the sales results, he analyses values, and we add that data to the mix when we match his mares up with pedigrees, nicking and physicals. 'Okay, so we're putting in a $100,000 stud fee: what's the potential return if we get an average to above-average foal? And if we get a really nice foal, then what could it be?'

Sam-Son's dispersal at the 2021 Keeneland January sale | Keeneland

“So he really looks at it from a quality standpoint. And in this day and age, that's what's selling; that's what's bringing the big numbers. In order to have a shot at doing that, you have to put in the capital, to buy these nice mares and pay those stud fees. Obviously a nice horse can come from anywhere, at any level. But from a commercial standpoint, the horses you see most frequently at the top level, if they're not homebred, have been priced well. So that's how Dr. Malluche operates. This year he has two mares booked to Quality Road, he's breeding to Essential Quality, Nyquist, Curlin: really at the top end of the market.”

The pair visiting Quality Road attest to that emphasis on quality. One is Impeccable Style (Uncle Mo), runner-up in the GIII Indiana Oaks and recently acquired, in foal to Authentic, at the Keeneland November Sale for $500,000. The other is none other than Checkered Past, who sadly lost an Authentic foal of her own during the fall. But she does have the Candy Ride yearling she was carrying at auction, evidently delivered as a most attractive filly and to be prepared for sale either at Saratoga in August or Keeneland the following month.

“Checkered Past is a typical Smart Strike mare, and there's a lot of A.P. Indy in there, too,” Simms says. “She's not a real big mare, so breeding her to Authentic and Quality Road we were trying to get a little more leg up underneath her. But she's correct, and her race record spoke for a lot. She's the only black-type under her dam, but she earned $335,000 on the track and did some very nice running. And those families are just so deep. When you have an operation like that getting out of the business, I think it's like we saw when Ned Evans dispersed his stock. People want to get into those families because they have never had the opportunity to do so in the past.”

Sure enough, Checkered Past is out of an unraced sister to Catch the Thrill, champion 2-year-old filly in Canada and herself daughter of a domestic champion in Catch the Ring (Seeking the Gold), near-millionaire winner of the GIII Maple Leaf S. and Canadian Oaks. The next dam Radiant Ring (Halo) won the GII Matchmaker S. and, as 2003 Canadian Broodmare of the Year, was responsible overall for eight stakes performers and/or producers. (We should note here that Checkered Past's arrival at Silesia Farm actually represents a Bluegrass repatriation for this family, as Radiant Ring's dam was bred by that estimable outfit, Nuckols Bros.)

The late Empire Maker at Gainesway | EquiSport Photos

The upshot, for Messier, is a copper-bottomed Classic pedigree. Obviously the legacy of his late sire feels pretty secure, Pioneerof the Nile having made all due arrangements despite his own premature passing; and along the bottom line the seeding reads Smart Strike, A.P. Indy, Seeking the Gold and Halo.

In a way, his rise reminds all parties to the Baffert impasse that the stakes are bigger than their own reputations or interests. How apt it would be, for those who created the Sam-Son brand, for their legacy to be gilded so soon after the dispersal by a Kentucky Derby winner! And how disappointing, if Messier remains excluded, for those who–though newer to the game–have recognized the value of that genetic heritage and invested in its conservation.

Dr. Malluche plainly has a wholesome sense that the interests of his program can coincide with those of the breed overall; that there should be nothing more commercial than prioritizing the running power of a family. If you do that, the selling power will follow naturally. Hence the stipulation that mares recruited to Silesia Farm should themselves have demonstrated black-type quality.

Warrendale's Hunter Simms | Keeneland

“That's the whole thing, when you're putting matings together, and trying to develop families,” Simms says. “A mare can have four foals that all bring half a million dollars. But if they then don't race, if they don't do well, at the end of the day you're losing value in your product. So you have to do it from the standpoint of: 'Yeah, potentially I can get X, commercially; but this way I can also give my horse the best odds of success on the track.'”

That strategy also emboldens Dr. Malluche to retain such horses as happen to miss their cue at the sales. A couple of years ago, for instance, Rodolphe Brisset saddled stakes-placed Lantiz (Tizway) to run fourth in the GI Flower Bowl S.

Of course, you can make all the right calls and still be at the mercy of luck. You could hardly ask for a more compressed sample of the sport's ups and downs, in fact, than the checkered winter of Checkered Past: first the loss of her Authentic foal, and now this thrilling elevation in her value.

“Oh, they're ecstatic, jumping for joy,” affirms Simms of his clients. “You have a down like that, with the mare losing her pregnancy, and then you turn around and something so positive happens just a few weeks later. They understand that the lows of this business are really low, but the highs are really high. What happened is still rather fresh: they love their horses, they love the foals running around them in the paddock. But it all kind of comes full circle, and obviously this mare now looks pretty good value.”

And her new custodians could have no better model for their whole program than the one that produced their most exciting mare.

“They're very enthusiastic about the business,” says Simms. “It's a very good operation to represent, and we really enjoy working with them. They haven't been in it that long, but they're raising good horses, and they're doing it the right way.”

The post Messier First to Spread Sam-Son Legacy appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Dangerous to Slight Lecomte Breakout

With so much background noise over the tragic Medina Spirit (Protonico), few have given due attention to another poignant context for the potential elevation of Mandaloun (Into Mischief) as official winner of the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby. If the next name on the roll of honor happens to be Call Me Midnight (Midnight Lute), however, then perhaps more of us will renew our gratitude to the late Prince Khalid Abdullah for a legacy well measured by the performance of both horses at Fair Grounds last Saturday.

The founder of Juddmonte Farms died just four days before Mandaloun began his eventful sophomore campaign with third in the GIII Lecomte S. last year. Even as things stand, it is instructive of the standards set by the Juddmonte team that he proceeded to become their third runner-up from just six Derby starters. (The others, also homebred, being Aptitude {A.P. Indy} and Empire Maker {Unbridled} in 2000 and 2003 respectively.)

Those standards are so unstinting that breeders at every level avidly contest the mares culled by Juddmonte, who routinely top the bill at Tattersalls every December. A rare exception, however, was the one who gave us Call Me Midnight–winner of the Lecomte half an hour after Mandaloun, making a rather slicker start to his third campaign than to his second, won the GIII Louisiana S.

Overseen (First Defence) cost Hartwell Farm just $16,000 deep into the Keeneland November Sale of 2013, when offered through Mill Ridge as an unraced juvenile. As we'll see, she represents one of the great Juddmonte dynasties. But her dam had become a disappointing producer, while Overseen herself was so dismally lacking in size–as wittily implied in her naming–that her buyers immediately repented, trying (but failing) to discard her only weeks later at Fasig-Tipton's Mixed February Sale.

Fortunately Robbie and Susie Lyons of Hartwell have the good sense–so uncommon among breeders today, despite the vagaries of this business–to mate mares on the premise that the resulting foal might at least run if, for any reason, it can't sell. So instead of chasing those fleeting vogues that spark and fade around unproven stallions, Overseen was in 2018 sent to Midnight Lute.

Midnight Lute | Sarah Andrew

As it happens, that same spring the Hill 'n' Dale stallion had a sophomore filly on the rise in California, named Midnight Bisou. But there has always been far more to Midnight Lute than his headline act. Over the past two years, indeed, he has mustered his fourth and fifth Grade I winners–Keeper Ofthe Stars (Gamely S.) and Smooth Like Strait (Shoemaker Mile, and only caught late in Breeders' Cup Mile)–while maintaining a fee of just $15,000.

The mating that produced Call Me Midnight most blatantly entwined two lines of Fappiano, through his sons Quiet American and Unbridled: respectively the grandsires of Midnight Lute, via Real Quiet; and damsire First Defence, via Unbridled's Song. But while Fappiano is obviously a potent dirt Classic brand, not least through the endeavors of Empire Maker, Call Me Midnight's candidature for the Triple Crown trail is greatly fortified by Overseen's granddam: the Juddmonte foundation mare, G1 Epsom Oaks runner-up Slightly Dangerous (Roberto).

By the early 1990s this was perhaps the most glamorous broodmare in Europe. Her second foal was the brilliant miler Warning (GB), a son of Prince Khalid's first stallion Known Fact (and a fragile European footprint for Man o' War via Diktat {GB}, Dream Ahead and now Al Wukair {Ire}). And while Juddmonte would experience rare disappointment in the stud career of its charismatic Arc winner Dancing Brave, Slightly Dangerous nonetheless managed to provide him with a Derby winner in Commander in Chief (GB). In addition, she produced three foals to emulate her own status as Classic runners-up: Dushyantor (Sadler's Wells) in the Derby (later multiple champion sire of Chile); Deploy (GB) (Shirley Heights {GB}) in the Irish version; and Yashmak (Danzig) in the Irish Oaks. The latter went on to win the GI Flower Bowl Invitational, securing her dam new distinction locally, as 1997 Kentucky Broodmare of the Year.

After Yashmak, Slightly Dangerous managed two more foals by Danzig. Since the last was an unraced colt, her final bequest was effectively Jibe, second in the G1 Fillies' Mile at Ascot as a juvenile and a stakes winner over 10 furlongs at three. And this is the dam of Overseen.

As already indicated, Jibe had proved an ineffective conduit of her own dam's prowess by the time Overseen was moved on so cheaply. Of her eight foals, in fact, only one managed to win; the others either never made it onto the track, or shouldn't have bothered. But there are embers to this family that can still be stoked: the solitary winner out of Jibe, a filly by Empire Maker, went on to produce 'TDN Rising Star' Taraz (Into Mischief), who looked a special talent a couple of years ago in winning her first three starts for Brad Cox, only to suffer a catastrophic injury one morning at Oaklawn. She was a gigantic specimen, but little Overseen has herself already produced (from four starters to date) a Bayern filly, built on the same modest lines but beaten only a head in a juvenile stakes at Woodbine in 2019.

These recent distinctions had been preceded, in the wider family, by Yashmak's son Full Mast (Mizzen Mast), who won the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere; while a sister to Deploy produced two Group winners, and also features as second dam of two Group 1-placed colts (notably G2 Hardwicke S. winner Await the Dawn {Giant's Causeway}) and third dam of a G1 South Australian Derby winner. But Call Me Midnight really needs to keep progressing to reinvigorate a family that so aptly represents Prince Khalid's legacy to the breed. His damsire First Defence, remember, is a son of Honest Lady (Seattle Slew)–who shared her dam, the Juddmonte matriarch Toussaud (El Gran Senor), with Empire Maker among others–while Slightly Dangerous herself was acquired way back in 1982, in the same month that the Prince celebrated his first homebred winner.

Toussaud | Horsephotos

Slightly Dangerous had then just won the G3 Fred Darling S., a traditional signpost to the Classics, and was a granddaughter of Evelyn Olin's Noblesse (GB), the outstanding juvenile of 1962 and 10-length winner of the Oaks in a light career. Noblesse was also confined to a relatively limited output in the paddocks, but all five of her foals were stakes performers and included Where You Lead (Raise a Native)–herself runner-up in the Oaks, just as would in due course become the case of her daughter Slightly Dangerous.

It was only a few weeks after acquiring Slightly Dangerous that Prince Khalid doubled down on the family by buying a yearling (at the same auction where he found the dam of Danehill) by Blushing Groom (Fr) out of Slightly Dangerous's Group-winning half-sister I Will Follow (Herbager {Fr}). This would become Rainbow Quest, Arc winner and multiple Classic sire/damsire.

So this is a family saturated with Classic quality. A lot of people are dismissing Call Me Midnight as owing his day in the sun to a pace meltdown. But while his running style won't help in the modern Derby, which lacks the speed pressure of old since the exclusion of sprinters by the points system, we know to respect the Fair Grounds talent pool nowadays. And hindsight lends a coherent shape to his development. Sure, he took five juvenile attempts to break his maiden–but that represents a useful foundation of experience and he improved every time (bar a mad attempt to burn them off in :21.66 in a sprint, hardly his metier as it turns out). He was rubbing shoulders with some good horses along the way, for instance in chasing home subsequent GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile third Giant Game (Giant's Causeway) at Keeneland. Moreover he has won over the Derby track, and probably hadn't soaked up that effort when suffering a messy trip anyway in the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. a couple of weeks later. All in all he'll have more going for him, entering the gate for the GII Risen Star S., than did Country House (Lookin At Lucky) at the same stage.

Call Me Midnight's Churchill maiden win Nov. 13 | Coady

It would admittedly be startling if he could keep ahead of that particular curve, as a horse who has already been through the ring four times. Hartwell got $25,000 for him as a Keeneland November weanling, from Milton Lopez; and, though a $37,000 RNA in the same ring the following September, he was allowed to go for $17,000 through Beth Bayer to Team Work Horseman Group at OBS the following month. That winter, however, he obviously began to get it together and he proved a very efficient pinhook when realizing $80,000 from Peter Cantrell for Navas Equine back at OBS March.

So there have been winners already, while Mr. Cantrell has 10 Derby points in the bank and Hartwell Farm can now hope to reap its rewards from Overseen's future stock. And there are actually gains to be made by us all, if Midnight Lute could get a Derby winner.

His standout Midnight Bisou emerged from a monster book assembled after his first sophomores caught fire with two Grade I winners, a Classic-placed colt and a colt and filly who both broke track records in respectively winning the Sunland Park Derby and Oaks by an aggregate 13 lengths. But before Midnight Bisou had even made her juvenile bow, her sire had already dwindled from 186 mares to 56–a classic example of the childish brevity of commercial attention. Through all these ups and downs, Midnight Lute has established a lifetime clip of 10% stakes performers and 5% graded stakes performers, to named foals, which stacks up competitively enough against many a more expensive rival.

The first of Midnight Lute's Breeders' Cup Sprints | Sarah Andrew

In the process, he has also established a capacity to draw out the two-turn reserves latent in his pedigree. His own career, as a dual winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint, was famously a case of Bob Baffert managing the horse's wind troubles; no less notorious was his sheer scale, at 17 hands, while his own sire's exceptional caliber as a Classic performer was never matched by his opportunities at stud. One way or another Midnight Lute, elegantly proportioned within all that power, channelled his talent with exceptional flair for an unprecedented sprint Beyer of 124. And he has long proved a flexible match for his mares: while initially making his name with single-turn dashers like Shakin It Up and Midnight Lucky, he has since diversified his impact across many disciplines.

Should all else fail, indeed, connections of Call Me Midnight have the option of turf up their sleeve: we've seen all the European royalty behind the dam, while the sire's last two Grade I scores both came on grass. Midnight Lute's third dam, after all, was by Sea-Bird II (Fr) and the next two both won the Italian Oaks; and he was very adaptable himself, in terms of surface, bursting clear on the slop for his first Breeders' Cup and running 1:07.08 on synthetics for his second, besides setting a stakes record on the storied dirt of the GI Forego.

But the real spur to further achievement for Call Me Midnight, did he but know it, is the momentous vacancy available to any male that can salvage this tenuous branch of the Fappiano line.

You can't put a price on that. Quiet American is a Nerud/Tartan Farms time capsule, with the top-and-bottom duplication of two of the great postwar mares in Aspidistra and Cequillo: a genetic goldmine that measures up even to the way Overseen balances Slightly Dangerous and Toussaud. And their combination will surely have many of us in his corner, as Call Me Midnight continues to explore a shared legacy in the hoofprints of Mandaloun.

The post Dangerous to Slight Lecomte Breakout appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Belgrade a Capital Investment for Next Kingdom

In terms of the luck so indispensable on the GI Kentucky Derby trail, Carl and Yurie Pascarella are perfectly aware that they have used up a lot of “credit”. Certainly they know just how fortunate they were, to have been in the Team Valor partnership that won the race in 2011 with Animal Kingdom (Leroidesanimaux {Brz}). And prior to that, Carl was CEO of Visa during its hugely successful association with the Triple Crown series, between 1995 and 2005 offering a $5-million bonus to anyone who could slake the industry's increasingly avid thirst for a successor to Affirmed.

Credit, however, resembles fire in the old axiom: a bad master, but a very good servant. That's true whether you're dealing with a bank, or Lady Luck. And in spending $700,000 for one of the headliners of the Keeneland January Sale, in debut winner Belgrade (Hard Spun), the Pascarellas were not so much pushing their luck as actually making a measured calculation.

After all, it would have been easy to spend that kind of money in the same ring last September, on a yearling colt with breeding and conformation that might feasibly support Derby aspirations. But with those youngsters never having even had a saddle on their backs, plenty of prospectors try to improve their odds by waiting to see whether they can sprint an eighth in 10 seconds under tack the following spring. In this instance, then, the Pascarellas have simply extended the same logic to land a colt much farther down the road, having won a Fair Grounds maiden in December by six lengths.

Be in no doubt, they are absolutely versed in–and reconciled to–the unpredictability of the Turf. In fact, they recognize precisely that as what makes the whole game captivating.

“Horseracing is a great ego leveller, a great field leveller,” says Carl. “People can pay $5 or $10 million for a yearling or 2-year-old and then see horses like Funny Cide (Distorted Humor) or Smarty Jones (Elusive Quality) come along and win the Derby. So you can't buy your way in. Well, you can try–but it's very humbling. And that's kind of fun. We know how very fortunate we were, with Animal Kingdom. But once you get bitten by that bug, believe me, you'd like to get back there.”

So the Pascarellas make sure they do their due diligence and then just hope for the best.

“It was more than we ever hoped to spend on a horse,” admits Yurie. “But we bought a couple of yearlings a few years back that had very good pedigrees, but didn't do well on the track. We breed a few of our own, but they're just a side thing we do for pleasure. So for several months we've been talking to our trainer Graham Motion, saying that if we want any traction on the racetrack, we might as well buy a horse that's already been running, one where we can know a bit more about the potential. But it's not been easy.”

It was Motion, of course, who did such a masterly job with Animal Kingdom.

“Coming up to this sale Graham had counselled us that, this year, any of these 3-year-olds that was looking good round a couple of turns, with the right kind of lineage, was going to be expensive,” says Carl.

A private offer was duly made for Belgrade, but owner Randy Bradshaw was already committed to public auction. Motion urged them to follow the horse through: he commended both Bradshaw and trainer Brendan Walsh as the types to give a horse a good grounding, and both had attested to the horse's quality and temperament.

“And in fact I think Randy Bradshaw broke Animal Kingdom at some point, so it was a connection we felt really good about,” Yurie says. “We liked that the horse had not been pushed too early, to make that maiden race. And when I watched the video, he just walked through the finish line. It was only six furlongs but he looked like he has lots more to give, running farther.”

Carl and Yurie Pascarella | Getty Images

The Pascarellas, who are based in San Francisco, were represented at the sale by Motion's racing manager Jane Buchanan.

“She was on the grounds for us and was very, very impressed when she saw the horse,” Carl says. “And while it's not like we're ultra-conservative, we vetted him like no horse has ever been vetted. And at the end of the day Jane came to us and said: 'You're not going to get him for even close to what we offered, pre-sale, but this boy has got it all. He's got good bone, good structure, good temperament.' And that last aspect is especially important to us: we know it doesn't mean everything, but being so close to Animal Kingdom, we knew that he was a smart horse and a tough horse, and how being so strong, mentally, was key to his success.”

Having been shipped from Fair Grounds to Lexington, and now to Motion's Tampa Bay division, Belgrade is being given time to regroup and settle in. And that feels instructive of the whole merit of this project: that this horse is assured respectful handling by his new connections.

Sure, Carl permits himself to hope that after a few breezes, and eventually a race to test the water, Belgrade might look eligible to try the competition somewhere with Derby starting points on the line.

“As you can tell, my husband has very high hopes,” interrupts Yurie teasingly.

“Of course, he may end up in Los Alamitos!” acknowledges Carl with a chuckle.

Belgrade won his Dec. 18 debut easily | Lou Hodges

“Maybe I tend to be a little more pragmatic,” says Yurie. “But we both leave it all up to Graham. We trust him so much, we certainly don't tell him what to do. So let's just see how the horse is, see what he's made of, see what suits him. Of course the 3-year-old Classics are the ultimate goal for any horse owner. But it doesn't happen very often, and we've already been very fortunate. What I really like is that Hard Spun is such a sturdy stallion: he produces horses that are durable. I prefer a horse to have longevity, as opposed to a quick dash to the goal, then nothing. So it's not the end of the world, if doesn't make those Classics. There'd still be Saratoga, still lots of opportunities for 3- and 4-year-olds, so hopefully he'll give us a lot of fun.”

No doubt the Pascarellas owe something of this seasoned perspective to the privilege of a world-class mentorship. Carl met Yurie, a Tokyo native, when he was heading up Visa's Asia-Pacific region and the couple was introduced to the Turf by the Yoshida family at Shadai Farm. The late Zenya Yoshida, that master horseman, would trot up a handful of yearlings and discuss their different characteristics with Yurie; and the Pascarellas entered regular partnership with his sons Katsumi, Haruya and Teruya.

“We'd race two or three horses a year together,” Carl recalls. “We had some great experiences, not higher than the mid-range but one of them ran until the age of seven or eight. So we cut our teeth with some phenomenal horse folks.”

That education resumed back in the United States after Carl, one Derby weekend, happened to be introduced to the president of ABC, who mentioned that the current sponsorship deal would end the following year. Carl went back to his head of marketing and gave him the number: he didn't know whether they wanted to be involved in something like this, but there would be no harm in giving the guy a call and hearing what he had to say.

Pascarella with Nick Zito during the Visa sponsorship | Getty Images

“I guess we were very fortunate at Visa, I always had Chief Marketing Officers that were smart and knew how to leverage the brand,” Carl reflects. “Under my tenure as CEO we signed the Olympics, we signed the NFL, we got into Broadway. And after vetting this idea through everything in the world, we said that this was the most watched two minutes in sport, and let's go for it. And you know, the Triple Crown was probably the biggest return that we ever got on our marketing or partnership investment.”

Just let that sink in a moment. When we consider all the problems besetting our sport, and its image, that tells us just how high the stakes can be, if only we can get it right.

“I know that we were incredibly lucky, in that we had horses going for the Triple Crown in six Belmonts in eight years,” Carl reflects. “But that basically meant that we owned the sport's airwaves, at the weekend and some days leading up to it, from April until June. So we started building around this: horse stories, jockey stories, trainer stories. And in the process we were able to lift horseracing, maybe not from a situation of negativity, but from a lack of awareness. Though I had very little to do with it, people always used to thank me for shining a light on horseracing in the United States–but Visa got so much out of it, too.”

The sponsorship lapsed after Carl left the firm in 2005, but not the couple's interest. Yurie has always adored horses, and rode dressage for 30 years, while a decade of ringside Triple Crown engagement had been too engrossing to suspend now. Alongside a long commitment to the San Francisco cultural scene–notably its ballet, fine arts museums and symphony orchestra–the Pascarellas embraced the kind of wonderful companionship they had found in the likes of Bob and Beverly Lewis, owners of Silver Charm (Silver Buck).

The Pascarellas describe Loren Hebel-Osborne of Louisville, in particular, as “invaluable in guiding us and sharing her vast experience in racing for nearly three decades,” and they have had a couple of fun partnerships together. But to land on Animal Kingdom with Team Valor was obviously an unbelievable dividend, taking them from the euphoria of Churchill to an exotic sequel at the Dubai World Cup, and his retirement to stud prompted investment in two or three broodmares that board at Hidden Brook Farm, Kentucky.

Animal Kingdom's 2011 Kentucky Derby win | Horsephotos

But the vital residue of that personal experience, for the Pascarellas, is one that neatly dovetails with the lessons available to our industry from Carl's professional experience, in his Visa days. And that's the imperative to invest in people like Motion, who allow us to present the sport to the wider world with clean hands. Without wishing to rock any boats, Yurie admits that racing in their home state has had too many damaging headlines for their horses to be stabled more conveniently. In broader terms, she hopes to see the industry make a collective effort to clean up its act.

“After all these scandals, we need positive headlines,” Yurie says. “It's often perceived as a crooked sport, and I hate that when we have trainers like Graham who do everything ethically. I don't want to go to the races and have to cover my eyes every time. Sometimes Graham's approach can be frustrating for my husband, because he will take his time when he sees that a horse is not to be pushed. But that's because he understands that if you do push them, they burn out. I'm not a big fan of babies running around when their bones are not set properly. You have to give these horses time to mature, time to grow up.”

“And, of course, there are a lot of owner-trainer relationships out there that are pure business,” adds Carl. “Sometimes even confrontational: we've watched some of that. But Graham is the kind of guy you like having a beer with. It's the same with [Motion's wife] Anita, we like them, we meet them socially, they're great family people. If you can't have that kind of relationship with the people directing your course, then you might as well not do it. The idea is to enjoy the experience. We feel very lucky to have had the introduction to Graham, through 'A.K.', and to be able to grow that relationship.”

The Pascarellas prize Motion's honesty even when it extends to uncomfortable candor. As Carl says, he “doesn't sugarcoat”. In the past, he has told them that he couldn't keep taking training fees with a clear conscience when a horse has shown a transparent aversion to its calling. Whatever its level of ability, moreover, trainer and owners alike insist on being uniformly accountable for aftercare.

So the Pascarellas know that they can trust their man not only to maximize the potential of Belgrade, but also to give them a reliable sense of what kind of investment they may have made.

“We're very excited,” says Yurie. “I can't wait to go see him. He sounds like a cool guy, apparently he came out of the trailer into his new environment cool as a cucumber. It seems like he has a good mentality, so let's see how that translates onto the track and how he handles the pressure from now on. It's still early, but we're looking forward to making this journey with him.”

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This Side Up: Back to the Future on Lecomte Day

Fastest two minutes in sport? You'll excuse us a bitter laugh here. By the time Mandaloun (Into Mischief) leaves the gate Saturday for the GIII Louisiana S., he'll be 382,968 minutes into a GI Kentucky Derby without end. And, with no sign of anyone putting their attorneys back in the holster, it's plainly going to be a while yet before we know whether Mandaloun will finally be anointed the 147th winner of a race that drives so many millions of dollars of investment in our industry.

(Listen to this column as an audio podcast by clicking the button below.)

As things stand, we're potentially looking at one of the luckiest animals in Turf history: a dual Grade I winner who has yet to pass the post first in a Grade I race. He was last seen, of course, in that dramatic Haskell S., which fell into his lap after Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow) was disqualified for his tangle with Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow). The latter, conversely, has accumulated a dispiriting sequence of near-misses since his last visit to the winner's circle, on this card last year, in the GIII Lecomte S.

Given our ongoing travails, and the resulting perceptions among the wider public, our community owes a great debt to Midnight Bourbon for his balletic recovery from the brink of catastrophe at Monmouth Park. As a potential lifeline for the precarious Man o' War line, moreover, he should in due course offer another valuable service in the replication, at stud, of that extraordinary athleticism.

We're not going to run out of sons of Into Mischief any time soon, after all. One way or another, then, a lot of neutrals will be heading to Midnight Bourbon's corner as the two rivals each attempt a personal reset in what will, on the anniversary of their first, be their sixth showdown.

But you have to feel sympathy for Mandaloun, too. At the best of times, finishing second in the Derby is a bittersweet distinction. It's one that has been shared by some great names, for instance Native Dancer and Nashua within a couple of years of each other, as well as by many that can only make you scratch your head. And nobody, regardless, would want to satisfy a lifetime quest in quite this way, as connections of Country House (Lookin At Lucky) will doubtless attest.

On the day, their horse proved better equipped for the defining challenge of the American Thoroughbred than all bar one of 20,000-odd other foals in his crop. Country House was desperately unlucky to be denied any further opportunity of wresting attention from that ever-distracting horse, Maximum Security (New Year's Day). Set for a relaunch at four, only to be derailed by laminitis in February, he duly finds himself standing on most generous terms (despite being inbred to the matriarch No Class) at Darby Dan. If there's any justice, someday one of his sons will secure him overdue respect in the Derby.

Midnight Bourbon's last visit to the winner's circle was in the 2021 Lecomte | Hodges Photography

If that happens, it won't be through a superior preparation. Country House was a Bill Mott masterpiece. It was only in this equivalent week that he broke his maiden; he then contested the second and third legs of the New Orleans trial series, catching the eye of many a wiseguy handicapper with the promise of better yet in the extreme test awaiting at Churchill.

In the process he contributed to the striking vigor of the Fair Grounds sophomores, in recent times. Last year the GII Louisiana Derby produced four of the first six on the first Saturday in May. True, these included a Californian shipper, but the overall strength of the Crescent City cohort certainly heightens interest in the return of Proxy (Tapit), who went missing after being sandwiched between Midnight Bourbon and Mandaloun in both the Lecomte and the GII Risen Star. Some really heartening breezes this winter allow us to hope that Proxy might yet live up to his name, and plug a gap for the Mystic Guide (Ghostzapper) barn.

But no graduate of the Fair Grounds Classic rehearsals has lately made a greater impact than Gun Runner–for whom the Lecomte, through Pappacap and Cyberknife, now represents the first big test of the theory that his stud debut was especially spectacular because his stock will emulate the way he thrived with maturity himself.

Pappacap prior to his second in the 2021 Breeders' Cup Juvenile | Horsephotos

As his second-ever winner, Pappacap was among the most precocious of the surprisingly precocious gang that secured Gun Runner the freshman title; but the Rustlewood Farm homebred can be expected to consolidate on both sides of his pedigree. His mother achieved her only graded stakes placing at the end of her third campaign; his second and third dams, unusually enough, are both by sons of that doughty influence Roberto; while his fourth is by another in Pleasant Colony. In other words, this is a horse bred to stick around. (He also has the honor of starting out No. 1 on colleague T.D. Thornton's TDN Derby Top 12.)

It's a big day, then, for the Winchell family, who stand Gun Runner with Three Chimneys and will be hoping to see Midnight Bourbon elaborate his own stud credentials. Because they also present the most obvious danger to Gun Runner's Lecomte pair in Epicenter (Not This Time), whose apt emergence in the Gun Runner S. over Christmas showed him to be very comfortable with pouring the speed coals into this hot surface.

Throw into the mix Trafalgar (Lord Nelson), a promising flagship for his classy hometown barn, and this looks another instructive edition of the Lecomte S. I love the cyclical nature of the Classic trail, with all its familiar staging points, coast to coast; and the return to the same card of two of the 2021 protagonists marks another ring through the trunk of the great old Triple Crown tree.

Because it's never really just about those two breathless minutes in Louisville. Those are the tiny apex of a huge pyramid that spreads out through the patient dreams of so many different people, past and present.

With everything that's going on–condensed by the tragedy of the horse that held off Mandaloun in the Derby–we must always conduct ourselves with due respect for the generations of predecessors who made our sport what it is. This race, remember, is named for the only horse ever to beat Lexington. And if we don't prove worthy of our heritage, in the perennial quest for a Derby colt, someday we will suddenly find that it's two minutes to midnight.

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