Teofilo’s Nations Pride Gets the Trip to Capture Saratoga Derby

Nations Pride (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}), the beaten favorite with a wide trip four weeks ago in the GI Caesars Belmont Derby Invitational S., worked out a much cozier voyage Saturday under William Buick to annex the GI Saratoga Derby Invitational S.

Graduating by 4 3/4 lengths at second asking over the Lingfield all-weather last October, the Godolphin homebred reeled off three more open-lengths tallies culminating with a seven-length rout in the Newmarket S. Apr. 29. Disappointing some when finishing a distant eighth in the G1 Cazoo Derby June 4 at Epsom, he finished full of run before coming up three-quarters of a length short in second to 26-1 upsetter Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway) in the July 9 Belmont Derby.

Breaking a beat slowly as the narrow favorite once again Saturday, Nations Pride was smartly sent through a narrow early opening by Buick to gain position as Classic Causeway went clear going past the stands the first time and found a perfect spot by the time the field bent into the first turn, stalking from the pocket in third. Tipping off the rail around the quarter pole, the blaze-faced bay charged past Classic Causeway inside the furlong marker and finished up smartly to win comfortably by 1 3/4 lengths in the end. Second choice Annapolis (War Front) edged out Classic Causeway for second on the wire.

“I came in yesterday and saw them train this morning [Nations Pride and filly With The Moonlight, who starts in Sunday's G3 Saratoga Oaks] and as a physical, I think they've done very well. The style of training [both recorded four breezes in an 11-day span], they've adapted to it,” said winning trainer Charlie Appleby. “On the back of Belmont, they were a touch unlucky. He was a bit slow from the gate there and had that wider trip around. It was a little bit messy, but that was by the by. We came in today confident that if we could just get him to break a bit quicker and William could get him up in behind the pace that we felt he was the right horse in the race and could go on and get the job done. It was a great ride by William.”

“He was drawn 10 at Belmont and he jumped a step slow, which he did today as well,” added Buick. “From the four gate, I managed to go to the inside and get him into a good spot and he did the rest from then on really. I expected them to go faster, but I also had in the back of my head that the horse that made the run in the Belmont race [Classic Causeway] would want to be doing the same again today. Once I saw that I knew Julien [Leparoux, aboard Classic Causeway] wasn't going to go too fas, I was happy where I was. I knew there were a couple closers in the race, but I knew my horse would stay well and the way that rain took the speed out of the track a little bit, so I was confident that my horse would stay well and hit the line well.”

Nations Pride was the first mount at Saratoga for Buick, who appreciated the occasion and the company kept in the track's star-studded jockeys' room.

“I'm very privileged to be able to come over here and ride these horses,” the 34-year-old said. “I've been riding a lot in the States on and off the last few years and I love it. The jockey colony over here is something really special. To be in that jocks' room today with all the superstars was fantastic and great to be part of it. I've never been to Saratoga before. This is my first ride. I've watched plenty of races here and last year we couldn't travel here, so when Charlie asked me to come and ride these horses, it was great to get that call.”

Pedigree Notes:

With the victory, Nations Pride is now the 59th graded/group stakes winner and 23rd Grade I/Group 1, as well as the first Stateside top-level scorer for the 18-year-old Kildangan Stud stalwart. His second dam Satwa Queen (Fr) was a five-time group winner in France and half-sister to G1SW Spadoun (Fr) (Kaldoun {Fr}) whose crowning achievement was a victory in the 2007 G1 Prix de l'Opera. Important Time, a minor stakes winner in Germany in 2015, has a yearling filly by Dark Angel (Ire) and produced a full-sister to the winner Mar. 8.

Saturday, Saratoga
CAESARS SARATOGA DERBY INVITATIONAL S.-GI, $1,000,000, Saratoga, 8-6, 3yo, 1 3/16mT, :00.00, fm.
1–NATIONS PRIDE (IRE), 122, c, 3, by Teofilo (Ire)
                1st Dam: Important Time (Ire) (SW-Ger), by Oasis Dream (GB)
                2nd Dam: Satwa Queen (Fr), by Muhtathir (GB)
                3rd Dam: Tolga, by Irish River (Fr)
1ST GRADED STAKES WIN, 1ST GRADE I WIN. O-Godolphin, LLC; B-Godolphin (Ire); T-Charles Appleby; J-William T. Buick. $535,000. Lifetime Record: 8-5-2-0, $899,216. Werk Nick Rating: A+++. *Triple Plus*. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree.
2–Annapolis, 122, c, 3, War Front–My Miss Sophia, by Unbridled's Song. 1ST G1 BLACK TYPE. O-Bass Racing, LLC; B-Bass Stables, LLC (KY); T-Todd A. Pletcher. $185,000.
3–Classic Causeway, 122, c, 3, Giant's Causeway–Private World, by Thunder Gulch. O/B-Kentucky West Racing LLC & Clarke M. Cooper Family Living Trust (KY); T-Kenneth G. McPeek. $100,000.
Margins: 1 3/4, HD, 1. Odds: 2.10, 2.90, 5.90.
Also Ran: Sy Dog, Stone Age (Ire), Royal Patronage (Fr), Main Event, Grand Sonata, Ethereal Road, Emmanuel. Scratched: Stolen Base.
Click for the Equibase.com chart, the TJCIS.com PPs or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree. VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.

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Big Day of Racing on ‘Tap’ Whitney Saturday

Hall of Famer Todd A. Pletcher, currently sitting in second place in the Saratoga trainer standings, will be locked and loaded in a pair of Grade I events at the Spa Saturday, led by the 'Win and You're In' GI Whitney S.

With the unbeaten sensation and 'TDN Rising Star' Flightline (Tapit) awaiting the GI TVG Pacific Classic at Del Mar Sept. 3, a pair of New York-based heavyweights in the handicap division will throw down in the 12-race card's feature.

The uber-talented 'TDN Rising Star' Life Is Good (Into Mischief), one of three entered by the aforementioned three-time Whitney-winning conditioner, will meet the streaking GII Stephen Foster S. winner Olympiad (Speightstown) in the six-horse field.

A tiring fourth over a well-documented deep surface in the G1 Dubai World Cup, GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational S. winner Life Is Good returned to his brilliant self with a jaw-dropping victory in the GII John A. Nerud S. sprinting downstate last month.

“He's got so much natural speed and such a high-cruising speed,” said Pletcher, who has also entered GISWs Americanrevolution (Constitution) and 'TDN Rising Star' Happy Saver (Super Saver). “His ability to carry it over a distance of ground is what makes him so unique and so successful.”

Pletcher will also be well-represented by another dangerous trio, topped by 5-2 morning-line favorite and 'TDN Rising Star' Annapolis (War Front), in the GI Caesars Saratoga Derby Invitational. The visually impressive Manila S. winner will be joined by stablemates 'TDN Rising Star' Emmanuel (More Than Ready), winner of the GII Pennine Ridge S. in his grass debut, and Grand Sonata (Medaglia d'Oro), in the stacked field of 11.

The Saratoga Derby has also attracted the top six finishers from the GI Caesars Belmont Derby Invitational S.–Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway), Nations Pride (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}), Stone Age (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), Grand Sonata, Royal Patronage (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}) and Sy Dog (Slumber {GB}).

“We were really on the fence between the Manila and the Belmont Derby,” Pletcher said of Annapolis. “But with only one start under his belt [since a layoff], we felt it made sense to come back and get another race into him before stretching him out. He's trained super into this.”

Saturday's Whitney program also includes the GI Longines Test S., headlined by GI Acorn S. heroine and 2-5 morning-line favorite Matareya (Pioneerof the Nile); and the GII Glens Falls S., topped by GISW and the race's defending winner War Like Goddess (English Channel).

Other graded action across the country Saturday includes: Shedaresthedevil (Daredevil) back to defend her title in the GI 'Win and You're In' Clement L. Hirsch S. at Del Mar; the GIII West Virginia Governor's S. and GIII West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer; and the GIII Ontario Colleen S. at Woodbine.

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This Side Up: Iron Legacy Will Never Rust

He's a rebel with a Causeway. But he is a rebel, all the same; or a maverick, at least; an outlier. Certainly we can't expect everyone to train horses like Kenny McPeek, nor indeed to buy them the same way. Apart from anything else, most people simply wouldn't be good enough.

McPeek's 10 millionaires to date have been sired by the likes of Cuvee, Louis Quatorze, Daredevil, Hit It a Bomb and Tejano–and he signed for most of them himself. As one who marches to his own drum, his style obviously wouldn't work for everyone. Think outside the box, and you'll have to manage without the many investors who feel nervous straying beyond the comforting confines of convention. They will seek sanctuary in the kind of strike rates available with trainers who start horses about as often as Halley does his Comet. Nonetheless, there are some pretty universal lessons to be drawn from the success of Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway) in the big race at Belmont last weekend, just two weeks after his barn debut.

Because if McPeek is too much of a one-off to be categorized simply as “old school”, there's no doubting the throwback element in Classic Causeway himself, famously one of just three foals from the final crop of the Iron Horse. And if McPeek is to some degree a victim of his own success, in that you tend not to be sent too many yards of silk if you can contrive such fine purses of a relative sow's ear, let's not forget that one of the world's most lavishly resourced stables is supervised by another who believes that Thoroughbreds actually thrive on competition.

 

 

Click the play button below to listen to this week's episode of This Side Up. 

 

Very few elite trainers in Europe, nevermind America, would have drawn out the reserves of Giant's Causeway as boldly as Aidan O'Brien. Already a Group 1 winner at two, Giant's Causeway started his sophomore campaign by fending off a battle-hardened, race-fit 6-year-old in April. Between May 6 and Sept. 23, he then finished first or second in eight Group 1 races, constantly switching distance. After that, as nobody will need reminding, he shipped to run the dirt monster Tiznow to a neck in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic.

The 'Iron Horse,' Giant's Causeway | Coolmore

We're talking about an exceptional specimen here, clearly, but O'Brien has always operated on the basis that his patrons at Coolmore require reliable exposure of genes they might wish to replicate. And like his mentor Jim Bolger, who last year ran 2,000 Guineas winner Poetic Flare (Ire) (Dawn Approach {Ire}) in two other Classics over the next three weeks, he additionally believes that maturing horses flourish for racetrack experience. Peeping Fawn (Danehill) had an aristocratic pedigree, nothing to prove there, but O'Brien still worked her like a stevedore. She had already been beaten three times in April when breaking her maiden on May 16. Eleven days later she ran third in a Classic over a mile. FIVE days later she was beaten half a length in the G1 Oaks at Epsom, over a mile and a half. Did she recoil from this dazing sequence of examinations? She did not. Instead, going up and down in distance every time, she won four Group 1 prizes in 54 days.

As it happens, Peeping Fawn has proved a fairly disappointing producer, albeit unlucky that her best daughter derailed. Giant's Causeway, however, has emulated his sire Storm Cat as a hugely important crossover influence. That's unsurprising, after his own slick transfer to the American racing environment, and he stands as a withering rebuke to the prescriptive approach we see, both sides of the water, to racing surfaces. He came up with a worthy heir in Europe at the first attempt in Shamardal, whose maternal pedigree was shaded very green, but has book-ended his career with an outstanding young Kentucky sire in Not This Time, whose own family obviously contains no less resonant dirt names.

Interestingly, Classic Causeway is out of a mare by Thunder Gulch, whose breeder Peter Brant has always been so far-sighted in this regard. Thunder Gulch himself, of course, combined a sire who had won benchmark races for the recycling of dirt speed–the GI Hopeful S., the GI Met Mile H. twice, the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint–with a turf mare whose dam had finished second in the G1 Gold Cup at Ascot over two and a half miles.

Most horses are more versatile than we will ever know. We should always start with the animal in front of us, and how it all fits together, rather than meekly obey herd presumptions. Sure enough, having only recently taken Classic Causeway into his care (after Brian Lynch laid some excellent foundations), McPeek urged a switch to turf because “the horse has a foot like a pancake”.

But often it's simply a question of opportunity. It was only the search for outcross blood at Coolmore, for instance, that allowed War Front and Scat Daddy to penetrate European myopia as coveted “turf” influences. And while John Magnier and his partners seem to be doing pretty well without my advice, I will just dust off my plea that they might indulge European mare owners by allowing American Pharoah at least one spring in Co Tipperary. (Especially as I keep reading that the home farm may apparently be a little short of fresh blood just now.)

Bleecker Street | Sarah Andrew

After last week's glimpse of how a more wholesome future might look, we revert to business as usual in the first Grade I of the Saratoga meet, with Chad Brown having to generate his own competition on grass. In fact, just one other American trainer has mustered a runner in the Diana S. It's striking, however, that most exciting member of the field is also the only one bred in America.

Bleecker Street was hardly a blatant turf prospect the day Brant purchased her as a yearling, down the road at Fasig-Tipton, but her sire Quality Road has a very flexible genetic background. (Just his first two dams will tell you that, as daughters of Strawberry Road and Alydar–and there's plenty more when you get down in the wheat.) Even Chad Brown has been prepared to start Bleecker Street in four graded stakes already this year, so presumably McPeek or O'Brien would by this stage have sent her to the moon and back.

Just as surface aptitude tends to be self-fulfilling, so you have to wonder to what extent pessimism about the constitution of the modern racehorse would stand up to horsemen actually going out there and testing it properly. But if we won't train them like McPeek, then the least we can do is breed them like Classic Causeway. As it was, no farm in Europe or Kentucky offered Bolger enough for Poetic Flare. And that's why, when so much of our commercial glister washes out the moment a horse has to break sweat, it will be the Japanese who end up with the horses of iron.

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The Week in Review: McPeek is Different, And That’s Why He’s Successful

The book on training the modern racehorse goes something this: Give them at least six weeks off between races, start them no more than five times a year and never take a chance. It's a book that, apparently, Ken McPeek has never read.

Among top-tier trainers, there is no one like him. He'll run fillies against the boys, run back in a week and he's not afraid to throw a 50-1 bomb into a race or, in the case of 2022 GI Belmont S. winner Sarava (Wild Again), a 70-1 shot. It hurts his winning percentage, which is at 17% on the year. But McPeek doesn't seem to care. His job is to make money for his owners, and he understands that the more chances he gives his horses, the more money his clients are likely to make.

McPeek dipped into his bag of tracks Saturday when he entered Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway) in the Caesars Belmont Derby Invitational, a decision that led to a Grade I win in a $1-million race.

The colt had shown a lot of promise early in his career and was among the top contenders for the GI Kentucky Derby after winning the GII Tampa Bay Derby. Then trained by Brian Lynch, Classic Causeway went off form and finished eleventh in the GI Florida Derby and eleventh again in the GI Kentucky Derby. The owners made a move after the Kentucky Derby and turned the horse over to McPeek. In his first start for McPeek, he ran third in the GIII Ohio Derby, a sign that maybe he was about to come around.

That might have set him up for some of the big dirt stakes coming up for 3-year-olds. Instead, McPeek targeted the Belmont Derby. Never mind that Classic Causeway would have to come back in two weeks or that he had never run on the grass. It was a $1-million race, and McPeek decided to take a shot, something few other trainers would have done with this horse.

It didn't hurt that Classic Causeway was the recipient of a lucky break. Emmanuel (More Than Ready) was not only a top contender in the race but the clear speed. But he was scratched by the stewards for reasons that remain unclear. The New York Gaming Commission tweeted the following: “The Commission Steward has ordered the scratch of Emmanuel, scheduled to run in today's Belmont Derby, due to issues relating to veterinary records. The matter remains under review.”

With Emmanuel out, Classic Causeway was the only speed in the race. Jockey Julien Leparoux picked up on that and put in a heads-up ride. Classic Causeway led by a length after a half-mile had been run in :48 and, from there, they couldn't catch him.

McPeek's aggressive handling of horses was also on display at Horseshoe Indianapolis, where he had a good showing Saturday. He got a win in the $100,000 Mari Hulman George S. with Semble Juste (Ire) (Shalaa {Ire}), who was coming back in nine days after winning an allowance at Churchill. In the GIII Indiana Oaks, he ran Runaway Wife (Gun Runner) off an eight-day layoff and Silverleaf (Speightster) off a nine-day layoff. Runaway Wife finished second and Silverleaf was third. McPeek also ran Rattle N Roll (Connect) in the GIII Indiana Derby, just a week after he won the American Derby. He finished seventh.

On Saturday, McPeek also won the GIII Iowa Oaks with Butterbean (Klimt). She was coming back in 28 days, by McPeek standards a long layoff.

The only horse he ran all day that had more than four weeks off was Tiz The Bomb (Hit It a Bomb), who was making his first start since the May Kentucky Derby in the Belmont Derby. He finished ninth.

On the day, McPeek ran horses in five different races, all of them stakes. He won two and had two others, both fillies, finish in the money and pick up black type. Among that group, everyone was running back in 28 days or less. That just doesn't happen anymore.

A Record-Breaking Belmont Meet For Chad Brown

Chad Brown winning a training title at the NYRA tracks is no longer big news, but what Brown accomplished at the Belmont meet that ended Sunday was historic.

With 153 starters, he won 47 races, setting a new record for most wins by a trainer at the Belmont spring-summer meet. The old record was 44, set by David Jacobson in 2013. But Jacobson compiled those numbers during a year in which the meet ran for 56 days. This year's meet ran for 44 days.

Twelve of Brown's winners came in graded stakes races and four were in Grade I's. He won 14 stakes overall. He won 27 turf races and 20 on the dirt. But his winning percentage on the turf was 26%, while he won with 41% of his dirt starters.

More Small Fields

They could only find five horses to run in the GII Suburban S. Saturday out at Belmont–a race that has been won by Easy Goer, Dr. Fager, Forego, Buckpasser, Kelso, Bold Ruler–and one came from the barn of the racing secretary's best friend, Uriah St. Lewis. The winner, Dynamic One (Union Rags), had never before won a graded stakes.

Between the June 11 GI Metropolitan H. and the GI Woodward S., likely to be run this year on Oct. 1, NYRA will offer five graded stakes for males on the dirt. (The other two are the GI Whitney S. and the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup). Please don't try to tell me this isn't a problem.

Juan Vazquez and the Pennsylvania Racing Commission

For years, the Pennsylvania Racing Commission seemed like a do-nothing organization run by bureaucrats who had better things to do than to truly police the sort. But it looks like that has changed.

Juan Vazquez, who has a long and troubling history of breaking the rules, shipped a horse in January from Belmont to Parx. The horse, Shining Colors (Paynter), arrived in such bad shape that she had to be euthanized due to what the stewards said was a case of severe laminitis. Vazquez was suspended for 2 1/2 years Friday, and the stewards called his actions “grossly negligent, cruel and abusive.”

This was not your typical slap on the wrist, but a penalty that fit the crime. Obviously, the racing commission has had enough of Vazquez's flouting the rules and it brought its hammer down on a trainer who should have been thrown out of the game years ago.

He is eligible to return on Jan. 26, 2025. Will someone–a racing commission, a track?–let him race at that time? One would hope that the sport can show enough backbone that Vazquez will never participate again. Just don't count on it.

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