Unsurprising, right?

The thing that made Frey's goal unique was its impetus: he took time away from the races in order to get a better handle on his mental health, a fact he freely shares with anyone who asks. Frey wanted to prove that the racetrack's negative stigma against talking about mental health is fading.

“Thing that I prayed about was to come back and do well, not for myself, but for those who are still struggling,” he explained. “I wanted to show that: just because you come out and say you have a problem, it does not mean that you are damaged goods and will be discarded.”

That attitude, and a healthy dose of luck, helped Frey earn the biggest win of his career on Dec. 16. Piloting the Bob Baffert trainee Wynstock, Frey scored a 14-1 upset in the Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity.

“It was just so out of this world,” the 32-year-old said. “I feel such an overwhelming sense of gratitude and grace. I'm grateful to Bob, the owners, to my wife and family, and of course to my agent who stuck with me through all of this. Most agents, or even people, would have said this was too much baggage, but Jack Carava really stood by me so I really appreciate that. He didn't have to; that's a very rare thing.”

Frey had struggled with mental health and addiction since his youth, growing up in what he called a “dysfunctional” home and lacking a clear sense of direction for his life.

“My parents tried their absolute best, but they had their own demons as well,” he said. “After my parents split, I started to act out seeking attention. I figured if my older brother, who was a deviant, was getting attention, then I was gonna be worse. I started partying, regular teenage stuff that got out of hand.

“I'm a competitive type, so I figured if I'm gonna be bad, I'm gonna be the best at it!”

Frey's father worked on the track, so when Frey was old enough he decided that his love of horses was a good place to start chasing a future.

“Coming to the track saved my life, I'm positive about that,” said Frey. “I was forced to get a good work ethic. I didn't want to party any more, I wanted to drive forward and be the best at my craft. In the first year I felt like I accomplished that, but then I had a bad injury, a broken femur. I felt like I was on top of the world and dropped back into reality.”

After winning the Eclipse Award as Outstanding Apprentice Jockey in 2011, Frey began using alcohol to combat the ups and downs of the jockey's profession.

He eventually got sober with the help of the Winners Foundation, but Frey's mental health had been precarious since the death of promising rider Avery Whisman in early 2023. The 23-year-old jockey and horseman committed suicide in January.

“I was really good friends with Avery,” Frey said. “I spoke to him two weeks before it happened. I really wish I was in a better place with myself then; it would have been a miracle if I could have just noticed something.”

Over the summer, Frey began to struggle with his sobriety. 

“I've had a few relapses over the years, and I began feeling like I was headed in that direction,” he said. “It seemed so impossible and miserable to be sober, but instead of going back to my old ways, I wondered if there was something more going on.”

The Winners Foundation and chaplains at Santa Anita helped Frey find therapeutic alternatives to alcohol. It was hard to walk through those doors, in full view of the backstretch community, but Frey was sure he was making the right choice.

“There's more power in being open about issues than not,” he said. “We're only as sick as our secrets. I think I was a little more open to the mental health aspect, because with alcohol abuse and sobriety, it was made open.

“What I found with my journey, I discovered that alcohol isn't the issue, it's the symptom of a much greater problem. I just struggle with the ability to deal with life on life's terms.

“I sought therapy of all kinds. I tried DBT therapy, CBT therapy, those types of wide umbrella stress tolerance coping mechanisms, cold therapy, internal self-dialogue, and meditation. There were a lot of different things.”

Ultimately, Frey decided to take the step back from racing for seven weeks. He was concerned about the reaction of the racing community, given the unrelenting physical and mental demands that the sport has of its participants, but he found himself pleasantly surprised.

“I was very shocked and surprised at how many people were concerned about me personally,” Frey said. “To hear that was very, very moving. Someone said, 'Well, he's not going to be on my horse, but is he okay?' 

“Typically, If you're not at the hospital, you better be on the horse! We create this big monster of rejection and judgment if we don't show up and perform to our best, but most people are a little more human than we give them credit for. 

“We all get a little bit fixated on success, and that's great, but I think keeping in mind that we can be loving and supportive while doing those things is extremely important.”

Frey spoke about his journey to better mental health with Jockey Cam's Nathan Horrocks for a documentary, and was thus invited to Tucson, Ariz., in early December to speak on a panel about jockeys' mental health at the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program's Global Symposium on Racing.

“I was mortified at first,” he admitted. “But, I felt like if I was asked to speak up about something, even if I was to get judged or ridiculed, if one person found the strength to get help, it was worth it for me.

“I found out that a lot of people were very supportive, and it's very liberating to know that. Now, people come up to me and they might say, 'Hey, I'm struggling too, how do I get help?' To be able to help somebody else is just the most beautiful and freeing thing.”

Returning to the races at Los Alamitos Sept. 22 after missing most of the Del Mar summer meet, Frey won two races on his first day back, then doubled the next day as well.

“It was really good for other people to see that, but for me it was a validation that I did the right thing,” he said. “I just feel very blessed. I feel that God put something in my heart, put this feeling of unease on me that pushed me to see what I needed to work on and reflect on. Coming back after that and being successful, it's just even more so a testament to my faith.”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Kyle Frey Finds ‘Power In Being Open’ About Mental Health appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Jim Culver, president of owner/breeder Dream Team One Racing Stable, explained that it was Velazquez who picked out the Cigar Mile after Hoist the Gold finished sixth in the G1 Breeders' Cup Sprint.

“Johnny rode him when he won the Phoenix (G2 at Keeneland), and in the Breeders' Cup, too, and when he came back from that race he said, 'Let me pick the next race,'” Culver said.

“The next day, Johnny called and said, 'We're going to go to the Cigar Mile, and he'll win for fun!' Well, he was right. Johnny said, 'He gallops out tremendously, but he does not like the kickback in his face. When the horse changes leads, you think he's about done, but he just takes off again.' I was a little surprised when he got that five-length lead at the top of the stretch – wow. It was just a tremendous performance.”

Hoist the Gold, a 4-year-old son of Mineshaft trained by Dallas Stewart, is a real throwback kind of horse. He's run almost every month since July of his 2-year-old season, compiling a record of five wins, six seconds, and three thirds from 26 starts for earnings of $1,119,547.

“He's been incredibly healthy,” said Culver. “We basically have to race him; he's not happy to sit around the barn for six weeks! We even have to breeze him, just to try to take the edge off him a little bit, so we've been really blessed in that sense.”

The Phoenix was Hoist the Gold's first graded stakes victory, and the first for the seven-partner Dream Team One Racing Stable since the days of Mucho Macho Man in the early 2010s. Culver personally purchased Mucho Macho Man from a farm in Ocala, paying just $30,000 for a colt who would go on to earn $5.6 million on the racetrack.

“They told me I should take a look at this guy who was galloping on the track,” Culver recalled. “I honestly didn't really like him! He was very thin from the front, tall and lanky. His conformation wasn't awful, but he had a long stride, which was the only thing I liked at the time, so I took a chance, and got lucky.”

Dream Team One owned 100 percent of Mucho Macho Man for his first race, after which Dean Reeves purchased a majority interest in the colt. Mucho Macho Man went on to win the G2 Risen Star, run third in the Kentucky Derby, and won the G2 Gulfstream Park Handicap for the partnership.

“We raced another 18 months together from that point, through the Triple Crown and several other major stakes, until eventually Dean bought us out on the remainder,” said Culver. “He was just a thrilling horse, and it was a thrill to be a part of it.”

Mucho Macho Man is still playing a role in Culver's life, albeit from the periphery.

Hoist the Gold's half-sister, Mucho Macho Girl (a 2020 filly sired by Mucho Macho Man), has won two of her three lifetime starts for the Dream Team One partnership, including an allowance race at Fair Grounds by 7 ½ lengths just 24 hours after Hoist the Gold won the Cigar Mile.

“Dallas loves that filly, too,” Culver said. “We're excited about her, for sure.”

The two horses' dam, Tacit Approval, is the only broodmare owned by Dream Team One. Culver purchased the two-time winning daughter of Tapit in 2015 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky February Mixed sale, paying $62,000 for her.

“We honestly hoped to race her again,” he said. “A few of the partners who had been in on her with West Point didn't believe she was ready to retire, so they came on board with us and we were able to buy her. Unfortunately, after four or five months of training, Graham Motion suggested we just retire her. We knew it was a possibility, so we decided to breed her instead.”

The plan was to breed one horse to race, then one horse to sell, but plans are not always so easily followed in the racehorse industry.
Tacit Approval's first foal was a filly by Mucho Macho Man named Mucho Macho Momma. She broke her maiden in her sixth start, but had to be retired after earning $117,332 on the track.

The next foal was Hoist the Gold. Culver entered him in the Keeneland September Yearling sale, per the business plan he'd put in place, but the colt did not achieve his reserve when bidding stopped at $47,000.

“We thought he was a nicer horse than that, so we decided to race him,” Culver said. “We knew he was pretty talented once he started training: when he was a 2-year-old, he breezed on Saratoga's Oklahoma training track, five furlongs in 58.1 seconds. It was the fastest five-furlong breeze on Oklahoma that entire summer.

“Now, we made some mistakes along the way. We thought with his pedigree that he would go long, but he faded at the end in two-turn races. We went to the Met Mile, and he faded in that, so we thought, maybe he just likes to sprint.

“Now, having seen him in the Cigar Mile, we'll be looking for more one-turn mile or so races in 2024. The first place we're talking about taking him is the G1 Saudi Cup in February.”

It's been a wild journey for the 62-year-old retired property tax consultant, whose introduction to racing featured an accidental trip to the wrong Saratoga in the late 1990's.

“I moved from Buffalo, N.Y., where I was born, to Albany for a new job, and the first weekend I was there, I asked my coworkers what was fun to do in the area,” Culver recalled. “They told me to go up to Saratoga and go to the races! So I did over the weekend, and when I got back on Monday, they asked me how it went.

“I said, 'I went, but it was at night, and I got back kind of late.' They laughed and told me, 'No, that was the harness track! You've got to go to the Thoroughbred racetrack!'

“Well, the very next weekend, I made it up to the Thoroughbred Saratoga. I remember thinking to myself, 'These horses are gorgeous, what athletes they are.' I knew that any time I had some money to waste, I would have to figure out how to get involved in this.”

By the early 2000's, Culver had invested with Sovereign Stable, and by 2007 he'd learned enough to launch his own syndicate. He took Dream Team One partnership private when the pandemic hit in 2020, but Culver is still loving his involvement in the game.

“I actually hurt my back just before the Cigar Mile, so I didn't go to the race because I couldn't stomach traveling,” he said. “But man, when I saw Hoist the Gold at the front at the top of the stretch, I forgot all about my back. By the time he hit the wire, I'd been jumping up and down and screaming so loud that my whole family came to check on me! It's still so much fun.”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Jim Culver Has Been Mucho Macho ‘Lucky’ With Hoist The Gold appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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That wasn't the case, however, for Whit Beckman, despite being raised in the Derby City itself. Instead, it was a series of quiet mornings in his early 20's, spent cleaning stalls and grooming his mother's show horses, that convinced Beckman to invest his future in the Thoroughbred industry.

The son of an equine veterinarian, Beckman didn't show any interest in his father's career during his formative years, preferring soccer and skateboarding to the horses. After college, though, he found himself unsure what to do with his life.

Beckman spent many a morning heading out to the farm to help his mother, doing basic care and chores, before he realized that his calling had been right there all along.

“You can go out in search of everything you're looking for, all over the world, but if you just look around you, you had it the whole time,” he said. “I realized I enjoyed working with the horse, the individual; switching off from the regular working world and doing the actual labor lets you get out of your own mind and into that communication that exists without any sort of words.”

Twenty some years later, 41-year-old Beckman has crafted a career path for himself that may just bring him to that pinnacle of sport on the first Saturday in May: the trainer saddled his first graded stakes winner last weekend, sending out 2-year-old Honor Marie to win the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs.

The win earned the son of Honor Code 10 points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby.

“With all horses, you have an idea of how good they might be, and I was always thinking two turns with the horse, so I'm just glad he confirmed what we all kind of assumed,” Beckman said. “I know that it's only November, but I'm fortunate enough to have been on the Derby trail before, and it's still pretty cool that at the end of the day, we're all dreaming about this!”

Beckman's previous Derby seasoning occurred during his tenure with Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, for whom he served as an assistant from 2007 through 2013. 

Yet his first racetrack job came courtesy of “Louisville guy” Walter Binder, and Beckman also spent time working at Upson Downs Farm on the outskirts of Louisville, before deciding to pursue a job in New York.

“Back in those days, Churchill was not giving away the same kind of money that they are now, so there were not as many top-name trainers basing themselves there,” Beckman explained. “Charlie Bowden – I bounced a lot off him early – he told me that if I really wanted to get into this business and learn, then I needed to think about the New York and Florida circuit, because those were the biggest venues. 

“Todd called me back while I was on vacation in Florida, and he told me to be in Saratoga as soon as I could get there!”

After six years with Pletcher, Beckman took a job as head trainer in Saudi Arabia for a year, then returned stateside to work for Eoin Harty in Chicago and Tampa for a spell. He returned to Saudi Arabia, but the second trip was much shorter: his daughter was born, and Beckman realized he needed to be closer to home.

“When it was time to go back, I made it all the way to New York with my passport in hand before I realized I really didn't want to go,” he said. “So I turned around and came home, and I got lucky to get a job for Chad Brown a few months later.”

Beckman headed up a string at Churchill for Brown for several years, gaining even more high-level experience.

“I sometimes look back in disbelief that I've been able to work with such high-profile horses and be in such well-respected positions for as long as I have been,” Beckman said. “There are a lot of things that are very similar in both of those stables, especially in terms of consistency and patterns, attention to detail, going above and beyond to take the best possible care of the horse.”

After going out on his own in 2021, Beckman had a bit of a slow start under his own banner. The focus has always been on quality, not quantity: Honor Marie's victory was the 23rd under his own name.

“You know, it was such a transient lifestyle, and I just wanted to be more present for my daughter, who's now seven years old,” he said. “Things are just continuing to improve, and now I'm trying to figure out how to best navigate the winters; I have 12 at Trackside, and eight at Fair Grounds this year, so I'm trying to split my time appropriately.”

Among the connections he made while working for Pletcher was with Kristian Villante, one of the founding four members of Legion Bloodstock. The growing company has supported Beckman since his first days on his own, and their selection of Honor Marie for $40,000 at the 2022 Keeneland September sale is proving to be quite the bargain.

The colt broke his maiden at first asking, after which co-owners Alan and Carrie Ribble bought out their other partners. Honor Marie is named in part for their daughter, Marie, as well as after his sire and dam (Honor Code and Dame Marie).

He finished second in a sloppy allowance race in his second outing, then stepped up to two turns for the Kentucky Jockey Club. Honor Marie cruised from last-to-first and won by two lengths at odds of 8-1, stamping himself as a potential horse to be reckoned with in 2024.

“He's done everything right to this point,” said Beckman. “He's a young horse, a May foal. Early on, he just had some maturity things and we needed a little bit more time to get him going. But now that he's starting to kind of figure things out on the mental side, we've always known the physical side was there. At this point, the way he won, the way the gallop-out went, he could go on to be a very legitimate horse.”

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Following the back-to-back success of First Row-owned racemare Goodnight Olive in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint, and her subsequent sale for $6 million at auction, several others in the ownership group are now making plans to head to the theater for their own “selfie” memories.

The photograph depicts Olive Thomas, a Ziegfeld girl, flapper, and silent film actress whose ghost is said to haunt the New Amsterdam Theatre. Thomas often performed at the venue before her untimely death in Paris in 1920.

So prevalent is the legend of Thomas' spirit that stagehands and security guards regularly end their shifts by saying, “Goodnight, Olive!”

Steve Laymon, managing partner of First Row Partners, acquired a Ghostzapper filly out of the Smart Strike mare Salty Ghost at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling sale in 2019. When he took to Google searching for name ideas, Laymon's first query, “salty ghost,” led to a link about the Olive Thomas legend.

The story, published at boroughsofthedead.com, ends with the phrase, “Goodnight, Olive!”

“I remember thinking, 'What a great name for a racehorse,'” Laymon said. “At first, when we had partners going up to take selfies with Olive's picture, the theater employees asked them not to do so. Then my partners explained the story, and the employees started following Goodnight Olive's career. Well, when my son Tyler made it up there to take his selfie, the employees stepped up and wanted to help him get it just right!”

They wouldn't want to disappoint Olive – it's probably best to stay on a ghost's good side. 

It was First Row member Will Robbins who came up with the idea of honoring Olive while in New York. 

Now, Laymon plans to get his own selfie with the Olive Thomas photograph when he takes a trip up North in a few weeks' time; first, he's taking a breather to reflect on the joy the last few weeks have brought to his team.

“All the excitement this year happened so close together,” he said. “She won the race on Saturday, and the sale was on Tuesday; it was a big few days for all of us. For a guy who purchases three to five horses a year, I have just been so blessed. My son came up to me after she won, and said, 'Do you know we've had six starters in the Breeders' Cup, and you've won three and had a third?' I'll be honest, I didn't know the numbers, but that is just so special.”

Dayatthespa was Laymon's first Breeders' Cup winner, capturing the G1 Filly & Mare Turf in 2014, and Goodnight Olive is responsible for the other two victories, capturing back-to-back editions of the Filly & Mare Sprint in 2022 and 2023.

That success is partially attributable to luck, Laymon believes, but it's primarily a result of the team he's surrounded himself with.

“I heard Arthur Hancock once say: 'Line yourself up with good people, and hope good luck runs over you,'” Laymon recalled. “I knew (bloodstock agent) Liz (Crow) and (trainer) Chad (Brown) when they started out, working for Pete Bradley and Bobby Frankel, and I just felt that they were two young people that had a lot of talent, and I felt like they were gonna be successful in their careers. When they went out on their own, I knew them anyway, but it felt like supporting the next generation.”

Crow was the one to call Laymon about Goodnight Olive as a yearling. Though Laymon typically works the sales alongside his agents, he was forced to miss the Fasig-Tipton sale in 2019.

“Liz had called me and said, 'I found a Ghostzapper filly I like,'” said Laymon. “I said, 'Gosh, Liz, you know I'd love to have a Ghostzapper.' I'm a Ragozin sheet guy, and he was the fastest horse on Rag sheets ever. Then she called me back, and said that Jay Hanley had an interest in the horse as well, so I said, 'I've known Jay for 10 years; 'I'm sure we can work something out.'”

Thus, First Row Partners and Team Hanley purchased a yearling daughter of Ghostzapper for $170,000. By the time Goodnight Olive returned to Fasig-Tipton four years later, her record stood at nine wins in 12 starts for earnings of $2,196,200.

It's a long way from where Laymon started, an optometrist from North Carolina with no experience in horse racing whatsoever. The passion was launched at age 28, when Laymon was invited to attend the 1989 Preakness Stakes with a group of friends.

“That was the year of Sunday Silence and Easy Goer,” Laymon said, then paused to remember the epic stretch drive. “Well, it caught my attention.”

Laymon later read an article in USA Today about Cot Campbell and his Dogwood Stables, and decided he'd like to learn about becoming an owner. 

“He probably brought more individuals into racing than any single person that's been in the sport,” Laymon said. “So I started with Dogwood and kind of grew from there. 

“My wife's cousin, John Eaton, was kind of dabbling in the breeding business, so we decided to put our energies together. Now he's one of the six in First Row Partners; we sit on the first row together in Saratoga, and we started buying horses with Liz (Crow) six years ago.”

Crow was instrumental in the filly's purchase at the sale, but it was Brown and his insistence that the owners be patient that helped develop Goodnight Olive into a champion.

Goodnight Olive didn't debut until March of her 3-year-old season, running a good second at Gulfstream Park but then immediately requiring time off to remove a chip from her ankle.

The filly returned to the races in October, winning a Keeneland maiden special weight by 8 ½ lengths, and then an Aqueduct allowance race by nine lengths, but then she required a second chip removal surgery.

“(Surgeon) Dr. (Larry) Bramlage, he called after that second surgery and explained to me what he had done,” said Laymon. “He said her anatomy was a little bit atypical, so he felt like he had made some corrective changes and she would be fine.

“Well, after that was when she started on that really good roll.”

Brown ran the filly in two more allowance races in summer of 2022, then stepped her up to Grade 1 company. Goodnight Olive responded with a 2 ¾-length victory in the G1 Ballerina at Saratoga, then won the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint for the first time.

She started her 2023 campaign with a win in the Grade 1 Madison Stakes, and after her winning streak was snapped with a third in the G1 Derby City Distaff Stakes, she came back to win the G2 Bed o' Roses Stakes before finishing second in her defense of the Ballerina and winning her second Breeders' Cup race.

She is now in prime position to secure her second Eclipse Award as champion female sprinter. 

Racing newcomer John Stewart made the final bid on the mare for $6 million, then announced that she would stay in training for a 2024 campaign with Brown.

“Chad looks to be following the same pattern as last year, sending her to Florida for some rest and relaxation,” Laymon said. “I didn't think someone would buy her to race her, but I know Chad will make the right decision for her and I think John will make the right decision based on Chad's experience.”

Goodnight Olive is, of course, Laymon's stable star, but the mare means so much more than the numbers she put on her resume through the years.

“She is such a special animal to have,” Laymon said. “There's something about a horse like this that brings people so much joy.”

Perhaps the most important thing Goodnight Olive has done for Laymon, personally, is the impact she has had on his relationship with his son. Though Tyler Laymon rode pleasure horses growing up, he had moved away from the animals until he went off to college and Goodnight Olive stepped into the picture.

“He spends so much time with her,” Laymon said. “He'd been around horses a lot, and actually worked for Chad walking hots one summer. He would call me and tell me that she was the smartest horse in the barn, that they'd show her something one time, and she'd have it. Tyler said she may be the best horse we've ever owned, way before she won her first Grade 1.

“She was a little closed off when she was younger, but as she's gotten older, she became very, very kind, and she just loves the attention. She leaned right into me after her Breeders' Cup win, when I went to lead her into the winner's circle. She just knew.”

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Thus, when Arzak posted a 12-1 upset of the Grade 2 Woodford Stakes on Oct. 7 over the same turf course in Lexington, Ky., it felt a bit like déjà vu.

“That was a pretty thrilling second,” Trombetta, 56, reflected on the 2020 Breeders' Cup, “especially coming off of the year we'd had with COVID.”

The coronavirus pandemic turned the entire world on its head in March of 2020, and left many Thoroughbred industry participants scrambling when most of racing was shut down. For the Maryland-based Trombetta, it was four months before live racing was able to resume.

“I had 80 plus horses at the time, and it was four months with nowhere to run them,” Trombetta said. “We hope we never see anything like that again in our lifetime. 

“It was very strange, because I'd come to work, breezing horses, trying to get them ready even though I wasn't sure what I was getting them ready for. We kept thinking, 'Well, maybe we'll race in a week or two,' but it kept going for four months. The whole situation was just awful.”

Trombetta counts himself lucky to have had owners who stayed supportive during those long dark months, allowing him to remain in the sport that had captured his imagination as a young man.

“My dad owned some horses when I was a teenager and I got some exposure to it that way. I liked the sport and I liked the horses, and I got an opportunity to start working with them a little bit,” Trombetta said. “I was walking hots when I was 13 years old and I was grooming horses by the time I was 15. When I was in school I did school, but when I wasn't in school I was at the track.”

By age 18, he got his trainer's license and had a few horses at Pimlico. Trombetta's first winner came in 1986 with Amant De Cour at Atlantic City Race Course in New Jersey.

For the first 15 years of his career, Trombetta split his time between the racetrack and his brother's demolition company. He'd work at the track in the mornings, then the building sites in the afternoon, and return to the track in the evenings to check his horses.

The MTHA Trainer of the Year in 2005, Trombetta burst on the national scene with Sweetnorthernsaint, an ex-claimer turned Grade 2 winner who went off as the Kentucky Derby (G1) favorite in 2006 and ran second to champion Bernardini in the Preakness (G1). 

For his career, Trombetta said “The Saint” meant everything.

“That was a turning point for me,” he said. “That's when we went from just doing this job to everybody kind of getting a chance to know who we were, and that meant the world to us. That just put fuel on the fire that I could have never expected.”

Trombetta built up his reputation year by year, saddling his first Grade 1 winner in 2012 when Next Question captured the Nearctic at Woodbine. Win Win Win took him back to the Kentucky Derby in 2019, and won the G1 Forego for Trombetta in 2020.

Following the pandemic, Trombetta went on to have some of the strongest years of his career in 2021 and 2022, bettering his own earnings record each season. He has now saddled the winners of nearly 2,200 races, with career earnings approaching $80 million.

Still, his memories of those days in 2020 will never be forgotten.

“It just makes you understand that you don't know what's around the corner, both from a physical health standpoint, and a business standpoint,” said Trombetta. “I have some horses that won some big races that year, and I still have the pictures on the wall where everybody in the picture is wearing a mask, even the jockey.”

Among those winner's circle pictures is likely one of Wet Your Whistle, who won the G3 Belmont Turf Sprint Invitational prior to his runner-up finish in the Breeders' Cup. 

“It makes you aware that anything can happen,” Trombetta said. 

As it happens, Arzak was purchased during the 2020 June OBS sale of 2-year-olds in training. Out of a Tapit mare and sired from the first crop of Not This Time, Arzak breezed in :10 flat and commanded a final bid of $575,000 from owner Marc Tacher. It was the third-highest price for a Not This Time juvenile at that sale.

Tacher picks out his own horses, Trombetta explained.

“He has a very good eye for what a nice horse looks like,” the trainer said. “I've been training for him for six or seven years now. His stable manager, Freddie Cruz, used to work for me, and we bumped into each other in Tampa one winter. Freddie introduced me to Mark, and the next thing you know, he sent me a few horses.”

Arzak was able to debut just four months later, and broke his maiden at second asking, winning a maiden special weight at Woodbine by three lengths. The intact horse would go on to win his first stakes race at age three, then his first graded stakes early in his 4-year-old season. He set a track record at Woodbine in April last year, but seemed to go off form in the latter half of 2022.

“He started the season really well last year,” Trombetta said. “Then, we gave him some time off over the winter. But I think that some of the races can be a little deceiving. It's not always really clear if he doesn't break well, or encounters traffic trouble, or is only beaten a couple of lengths for everything.”

Returning from the layoff, Arzak may have needed a couple of starts to “knock the rust off,” but by his fourth start off the bench, Arzak was coming from behind to win an allowance race on the turf at Saratoga.

The Woodford was his fifth start of 2023, and though Arzak is capable of going wire-to-wire, he settled back and made a big late run to win the Woodford by two lengths.

Now, the Breeders' Cup is on the table.

“If all is well, the owner wants to go to the Breeders' Cup,” Trombetta said. “If he trains good the next couple weeks, he's scheduled to go out to California on Oct. 30. So he'll work this weekend and next weekend at Keeneland, then we'll decide.”

If he makes the trip, Arzak will be Trombetta's fourth Breeders' Cup starter. While the trainer is certainly excited about another chance at the top level of the sport, he's no longer quite as phased by the spotlight.

“It's just like when we get a chance to go to Triple Crown races; it's the highest level of what we provide in the sport,” he said. “To get a chance to participate in it is such an honor, because you just never know what's around the corner.”

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Lady Radler, sent to post at 23-1, put on a show in that day's Grade 3 Dogwood Stakes to win by 2 ¾ lengths. The 3-year-old filly is now based at Keeneland while 72-year-old Campbell prepares her to take the next step up in competition, aiming for the Grade 2 Raven Run on Saturday, Oct. 21.

“I do find it unique that I am in barn 49, which is 10 feet away from Rice Road; I think that there might be a message there!” joked Campbell, the former longtime president of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. “Actually, Mike Stidham stopped me the other day when I was wearing a CDI hat. He said I was the last person he'd ever expected to see wearing that, and what I told him is true.

“At the time, and in that place, I was fighting for the horsemen in Illinois. It was my job, and if I had to do it all over again, I would. But we lost that battle, and now it's time to turn the page.”

CDI, short for Churchill Downs Inc., is the company that owned Arlington Park and opted to close the track in 2021, selling it to the NFL's Chicago Bears for a potential football stadium. The grandstand was demolished earlier this year.

Don't misunderstand: Campbell said he has NOT given up on racing in Illinois. He remains part of a consortium that hopes to build a harness track just south of Chicago, and believes that another Thoroughbred track in the city is not outside the realm of possibility.

“All my life, people have told me what I can't do,” he reflected. “But, because of the market we're in, I think it's entirely sustainable. You need good facilities, cooperation from the horsemen's groups, and you gotta believe in the spirit of the horse, the spirit of the people that are involved in this game. Nobody quits after they lose a race, so we shouldn't quit after we lose a racetrack.”

That horseman's spirit is something Campbell has witnessed every day since his youth: both his father and grandfather were what he called “summertime horse trainers.” They'd head out to East St. Louis or Fairmount Park in the late fall, giving $1,000 or so for older, arthritic horses who just needed a break, then bring them home to Wisconsin for the winter.

“Those cold Wisconsin winters would rehabilitate a horse in a very unusual way,” Campbell reflected. “As long as you kept them warm and fed, then you could turn them out in the three feet of snow and man, those arthritic horses would come around and be very useful the next year. It wasn't stakes winners or anything, but it certainly fed families.”

Campbell remembers a time when there were over 140 horses on the farm, between racehorses, jumping horses, and riding horses.

“In our family, we weren't allowed bicycles,” he said, laughing. “My dad thought they were dangerous, but we had our choice of 140 horses.

“I also show jumped at a very small level and had some very good horses. I had an open jumper, a warmblood, that could easily clear eight feet! It was not unusual for us to just give demonstrations at horse shows, because nobody could believe it. Even at that time, though, it was a real money game, and I was small, so between those factors, it just led me to the racetrack.”

Though his career as a jockey was cut short by injury, Campbell remained undeterred. After taking the time to make sure he was healed, Campbell started training full time in 1978 with a few horses at Thistledown in Ohio.

“The first year I trained horses, I was broke, and I had two twin boys,” he reflected. “I told my wife, 'I cannot do this again.' Well, in 1979 I led all trainers at the summit meet at Thistle. I kept getting more horses, doing better year to year, and this year's been my best year yet. But I do think that had I not been able to get my start in a very humble way, I wouldn't have the things I have today.”

Among those successes in racing are a pair of graded stakes winners, both former claimers, in 2006, as well as two of Campbell's sons, Jesse and Joel, both accomplished jockeys. The former won over 2,300 races, including the Queen's Plate in 2013, and Joel rode 718 winners during his career. Though each has now retired from the saddle, Joel remains involved in racing as a trainer, while Jesse is running a successful HVAC company.

Looking back, Campbell is very cognizant that it's the horses themselves who have allowed him and his family to be successful in this business.

“I told someone once that I'd changed my feeding program – I'm feeding better horses!” he quipped. “The thing is, you build on success. You have to be successful. I've always won races, won stakes, won a couple graded stakes with claimed horses. But I think relationships matter, and I also think experience matters. It's relative to your health, too. I've had good health and great relationships with owners, and a wonderful family that enables me to do all of the above. I feel like experiences, going through hundreds of horses, it all adds up and makes you a pretty well-rounded horseman.”

It's fitting, then, that it was a combination of those elements that led Lady Radler to Campbell's barn. Owner George Mellon, for whom Campbell has trained for more than 25 years, pointed out a filly by Kantharos at the OBS March sale of 2-year-olds in training.

Campbell went to check her out, and loved everything he saw. He ended up being able to purchase the filly for a final bid of $37,000.

“I told him, 'I just bought you a stakes horse and I don't know how I did it so cheap,'” Campbell remembered. “There was never a doubt in my mind that she would break through at the graded stakes level. I told George in the Spring, let me do what I have to do, and I will get you a graded stakes winner.”

Thus, Lady Radler entered the Dogwood with two wins from four starts in 2023, but Campbell was surprised that her odds were as high as 23-1. Her two losses were explainable, he said. The first, in April at Gulfstream, was caused by the filly clipping heels and nearly falling. The other loss, her most recent out at Presque Isle Downs, showed a clear distaste for the synthetic track.

Other than those two efforts, Lady Radler had never finished off the board.

Yet, Campbell was quick to admit that in the view of horseplayers, since he's not a mainstream trainer in Kentucky, and rider Jesus Castanon is viewed as a “senior” jockey, it may have been hard to pick Lady Radler as the winner.

“It doesn't offend me in any way, but sometimes I'm surprised about that,” Campbell said. “I wasn't surprised when she won, though!”

Heading into the Raven Run, Campbell is just as confident.

“This filly is doing outstanding right now,” he said. “When the horse is happy, they're sound, and their respiratory system is top notch, they can whip the top guys in the barn.

“It's a Grade 2, so I'm curious to see who enters, but I don't care who they run against her, she'll be 1-2-3. She needs racing luck, sure, but I don't see her going off at 23-1 this time!”

At the same time, while the odds of another Thoroughbred track in Cook County may be quite a bit longer than those his filly faced at Churchill, Campbell remains committed to the cause.

“It was always my distinct honor to try to contribute to racing in Illinois,” he said. “Based on the conversations that I'm having, from the Governor down, they realize that there is a danger here, that the racing industry is on the ropes in Illinois.

“I'm confident to say that there's still interest to build something like Arlington in Cook County, and if the phoenix could rise from the ashes, we'd like to be a part of it. We will never give up.”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Graded Stakes Win Helps Campbell ‘Turn The Page’ On Loss Of Arlington Park appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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“When I was growing up in the Bahamas, I always watched the Kentucky Derby, and I said, 'In order to win the Kentucky Derby, I need to be in Kentucky,' so I came over here as a very young man,” Demeritte said. 

That was 47 years ago. 

While the first Saturday in May is still a long way off, the dream feels a lot closer than it did in 2017, when Demeritte was given six months to live.

Diagnosed with multiple myeloma (bone cancer) and a disease called amyloidosis, which causes the body to make abnormal proteins, Demeritte has been undergoing chemotherapy once a month for 6 ½ years.

“You know, I can't focus on what's going on with these frail bodies we have,” said Demeritte. “I said a prayer last week. I said, 'Lord, you always bless everybody, so I got to come over here and I thank you for it. Even if I don't achieve the goal of going to the Kentucky Derby, I can live with that, but that's the desire of my heart.' Because I know that if you do His will, He will bless you with the desire of your heart.

“Life is like bumps in the road. Sometimes you hit some bumps, and sometimes it smooths out for you. That happened today for us, and I'm grateful.”

Of course, Demeritte knows he has to do his part, as well. For example, this colt's purchase for $11,000 at the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling sale is the result of years of practice at selecting horses other people may have overlooked.

He's had has some successes: Lady Glamour was a $1,000 yearling who would earn a graded stakes placing and $126,170 on the track before selling in foal to Not This Time for $115,000; Daring Pegasus was a $3,000 yearling who earned $122,092 in Demeritte's name (and $212,518 overall); She's That Cat was a $12,000 yearling who became stakes placed and earned $101,020 in Demeritte's care (and $334,729 overall).

“I go to the sales every year and we don't buy a lot of horses, but we try to get horses that are gonna be racehorses,” Demeritte said. “My motto is I buy a good horse cheap. I don't buy cheap horses.

“I try to look for horses that I think will stand up to the way I train a horse. And you know, if a horse has more than one defect, because they all have a defect, it's about what you can live with. This horse is really balanced and he had a good throat.”

Those bargain successes are a big source of pride for the Bahamian native.

“It's so cool, because I always said when I came here, I was the only farm manager who was Black in Kentucky,” said Demeritte. “I like upsetting the cart, because that's this game. You never know who could come up with a good horse, but you have to keep at it. You've got to keep working, so I am really excited for that.”

So, although it took West Saratoga five starts to break his maiden, a few more than Demeritte thought would be necessary, the trainer never felt overly concerned.

He has a lot of experience training 2-year-olds; in the Bahamas, before Demeritte made the move to the United States, he trained the country's champion 2-year-old three years in a row.

“[West Saratoga] would have broken his maiden earlier, but we had the number one post four times in a row,” Demeritte explained. “It's pretty tough going five-eighths, to come out of the one hole, you know. We never wanted to treat him like a sprinter, because he always seemed like he wanted to stretch out, so we didn't want to really pressure him to go really hard from the break.”

Nonetheless, West Saratoga ran three seconds, two at five furlongs and one at seven furlongs, before finally making it to the winner's circle when stretched out to a mile at Ellis Park. 

The progression is reminiscent of something Demeritte learned from his father, also a trainer in the Bahamas.

“My dad was a very, very good conditioner of a horse, so I learned that from him: how to feed a horse, and really condition a horse,” said Demeritte. “The only thing is that I understand there's a peak to every horse, and he would always try to get a little more out of every horse. I learned that if you try to get more than that peak, then it slides over the other side. Now, I understand how to know what I have in the horse, and how to keep them at their peak.”

From his base at The Thoroughbred Center in Lexington, Demeritte watched as West Saratoga approached that peak. So even though the colt was the second-longest chance on the board at 12-1 in the Iroquois, Demeritte remained confident.

“I'd been telling [owner] Harry [Veruchi] all week that they'd have to run 1:36 to beat him, because I knew I had him set up to run that kind of time,” Demeritte said. 

West Saratoga was in fourth early on, then went five wide before digging in to pull away from his rivals to win by 1 ¾ lengths.

“I saw the early fractions, but the last part I didn't see, because I was rooting too hard,” he said, laughing. “He's a nice colt, and he's moved forward with every race. … We've had some good horses in the past, but none like this one.”

The next step will be a race like the Breeders' Futurity (G1) at Keeneland on Oct. 7, but West Saratoga is unlikely to make the trip out west for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita Park.

“I would really love to start him at Keeneland,” Demeritte said. “That's the right thing for the horse. A lot of the races that he had short were more like workouts, so I feel like that's the proper step, to run him here at Keeneland then give him a breather.”

Demeritte hasn't yet considered how he might plan a spring schedule for West Saratoga, the star of his nine-horse stable. Right now, he's enjoying the ride.

“Hopefully this ride lasts a long time!” he quipped. “Now, I've run a lot of horses on Derby day, practicing for the Kentucky Derby, so when the day comes I don't have to be nervous!”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘Bumps In The Road’ Can’t Stop Demeritte’s Derby Dream appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Those well-worn footprints have seen their fair share of heartache, to be sure, but on Aug. 20, 2023, that is where the longtime horse enthusiast was standing when she achieved the pinnacle of Thoroughbred breeding dreams in Canada. A colt Rusnak foaled, one of just two she bred in 2020, won the $1 million King's Plate, first leg of the Canadian Triple Crown.

“I remember watching the other horses come to him on the far turn, and thinking, 'He's gonna get swallowed up here,'” Rusnak said. “Then he just starts pulling away. I remember putting my camera down and just screaming for him, then thinking, 'Oh yeah, I should probably take pictures again!'

“I was crying before he even crossed the finish line. It is beyond belief, really. I kind of look back now, and surreal has become one of my favorite words. It's difficult to find appropriate words to describe not only that day but that moment, because nothing seems powerful enough.”

Rusnak, 44, has managed a 16-stall barn at Hill 'n Dale Farm for nearly 20 years. She was there in the dark hours of the morning to welcome Paramount Prince into the world on Feb. 26, 2020, nicknaming the colt “Maverick” for his rough and tumble personality.

“He was literally the toughest foal I have ever raised,” she admitted. “He just had so much personality growing up, and he was naughty! One of my friends, I have photos of her standing in a hole that he had dug in his paddock. We would fill it in, and he would dig it right out again! He'd break fence boards, chase his paddock friend. He had a sweet side to him, but he was aggressive for sure!”

“Maverick,” born in the age of the camera phone just before the pandemic shut down the outside world, grew up to the sound of the camera flashing in his direction. Prior to his King's Plate victory, Rusnak put together a video with highlights from his first 18 months of life. Among the highlights is a clip of the yearling playing with a stolen hose!

“I'm biased, of course, but he is also beautiful,” she said. “Even now, I follow and take photos of him. He's got a great big engine behind, and a tiny white heart on his neck!”

Rusnak can still recall a childhood ripe with adventurous forays across her aunt's pastures, seeking the company of a handful of Standardbred ex-racehorses and broodmares, as well as the many times her aggrieved parents would have to hunt down their disappeared daughter. 

Her father, a police officer, and her mother, a real estate agent, weren't quite sure what to do with the newfound horsey obsession. Finally, Rusnak's parents purchased her a riding lesson. That was all it took; she was hooked. 

Admittedly, Rusnak struggled to figure out exactly how to incorporate her love of horses into her life. At first she considered the veterinary profession, then she thought about becoming a police officer, but it was a co-op at a Standardbred farm that really sealed the deal. 

Always a hard worker, Rusnak was working in tobacco and at a grocery store at the same time as her employ at the Standardbred operation, all while a rowing coach attempted to convince her to point to the Olympics.

“Rowing was twice a day, every day, but the spark just wasn't there like it was for the horses,” said Rusnak. “They absolutely consumed me.”

In 2004, Rusnak heard that Hill 'n' Dale Farm was hiring.

“I even sort of remember what I was wearing that day, and going up to Glen Sikura's office, and vaguely the interview itself,” Rusnak said. “It was my first job working directly with Thoroughbreds, and he hired me to manage a 16-stall facility. There are mares and foals, sales yearlings, the occasional layup, etc. I'm basically a one-woman show, from wrapping, bandaging, feeding, cleaning, fixing tractors, and even cutting paddocks!

“Glen is more than a boss to me now; his whole family is extended family to me. I'm really fortunate to have such an amazing relationship with him and everyone here.”

Around the same time, Rusnak had purchased a Thoroughbred mare she'd hoped to make into a riding horse. A friend pointed out that the mare, Mood Swings, was a full sister to a stakes winner, and suggested Rusnak breed her.

The first foal, a filly later named Lovin the Mood, went to the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society yearling sale before going on to break her maiden at Woodbine.

From then on, Rusnak aimed to breed one or two of her own foals each year. 

Platinum Steel, the dam of “Maverick,” was a purchase from the 2017 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. Rusnak had only bought mares from that particular sale twice before, and she found that everything she'd marked in her catalog was selling way beyond her budget.

“This particular mare, I saw her in the back ring, and I hadn't had her page marked,” said Rusnak. “Just like when you're betting horses, sometimes there's just something about a horse that grabs your attention. She was a chestnut with very little white, and she was a good size. She had a good pedigree, and was a half-sister to a lot of fillies. She fit my own system that's worked out before, so I thought, 'Maybe I can get her.'

“I was just trying to find out a bit more, and I saw that her half-brother Army Mule had won a race at that point. Twenty-five thousand was the absolute max of my budget, I wouldn't have bid again, but I got her. Then her page really improved!”

The Eddington mare was in foal to Kantharos at the sale, and arrived back to Hill 'n' Dale in Canada safe and sound.

“When I bought her, she was irritable and grumpy, so I nicknamed her 'Stella,'” Rusnak said. “She's changed so much in six years; she's a mint monster now, and if I call her out in the field, she comes running!”

Stella foaled a colt by Kantharos in 2018, and Rusnak admits she was perhaps a bit overeager with her aspirations after Army Mule's Grade 1 Carter win in April that year. 

“I was a bit too excited for my own good,” she said. “I thought I was gonna go to the 2-year-old in training sale, so I put a high reserve on him and bought him back out of our sale, then sent him to Kentucky to be prepped for the Keeneland 2-year-old sale. Then COVID hit. I don't have deep pockets, and I  had gone beyond my budget, so I ended up scratching him and trying to race him. None of it panned out. He had setbacks as a 2-year-old, then as a 3-year-old, and finally he ran second as a 4-year-old. Now, one of my best friends has him as a riding horse and that's cool.”

Rusnak opted to send both Platinum Steel and her only other mare, Stormin Wife, to Society's Chairman in 2019. 

“I've always liked the stallion,” Rusnak said. “He doesn't have a lot of mares compared to some stallions in Ontario, and despite that his success has been really impressive. I liked the cross, and I was trying to get to Northern Dancer, just having seen what she'd been bred to and what the foals look like.”

Sadly, Stormin Wife passed away the day after foaling her 2020 filly by Society's Chairman. After that, Rusnak opted to send Platinum Steel to a different stallion, opting for Souper Speedy the next two years and then Silent Name.

She also decided to finally take advantage of the foaling facilities at another barn on the Hill 'n' Dale property.

“I've lost a few to foaling difficulties before, and it's just such a tough business,” Rusnak said. “Foaling my own, it's exhausting. It's a bit unpredictable, because the mares will often give you a lot of signs, but sometimes they won't. I'm a notorious worrier, and I've had some bad luck, so I would lose sleep for weeks around foaling because I would just start to doubt myself.

“I finally said, 'Why am I doing this to myself?' Now, they foal them out at the main farm, so I still get to go and watch, but it's not nearly as taxing. Other than that, I bring them back right away, and I spend all my time with them!”

Rusnak also still owns a daughter of Platinum Steel by Giant Gizmo. The filly, now named Just Imagine, wound up needing to be hospitalized for 10 days as a foal. 

“She's really lucky to be here,” said Rusnak. “It's pretty special with everything that she overcame, and she grew into a monstrous 17 hands. She's a beautiful mover, but I wasn't ever able to get her to the races. I decided I'd look out for her for the rest of her life. Now she's on lease and in foal as an embryo transfer mare, but I still own her. I might have to try to breed her myself; I never imagined I'd have another giant pedigree update like this!”

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There's a moment that happens over the course of training a racehorse, she explained, when everything just starts to come together.

“When the light comes on and they really figure it out, and they start doing well for you, that's a big thrill,” DeMasi said. “When you finally get a horse to click, he's finally figured it out and is starting to do things right, and then he starts to show himself in the afternoon, that's probably the thing that really keeps me going.”

That moment isn't the same for every horse, of course, and sometimes it happens more by chance than by some grand design. All That Magic, winner of Monmouth's $104,000 Incredible Revenge by a nose in her first stakes try, was definitely the latter.

“I couldn't get a dirt race for her to go, so I decided, 'Why not try her on the turf?'” said DeMasi. “As we have found out, she's a different horse on the grass. It was a fun surprise!”

Now four-for-four in turf sprints, All That Magic's win in the 5 ½-furlong Incredible Revenge came nine days after a six-length romp at Monmouth against allowance company at five furlongs on the grass.

“I wasn't really worried about the added distance (her previous three wins were at five furlongs on the grass) because she has been drawing away in her wins lately,” the trainer continued. “My biggest concern was having just nine days rest. But she is just very good right now.”

It's hardly the first time DeMasi has had a filly step forward on the grass. The best horse she has trained, at least in terms of career earnings, was a filly named Joya Real.

“She was a horse that we had been running on the dirt, and she had knocked out a few conditions,” DeMasi said. “There was no race that I could find for her, but there was a race on the turf at Parx, and she won!”

Joya Real went on to win three stakes on the turf, and might have won a few more were it not for the rise of a tough female turf sprinter named Lady Shipman in the Mid-Atlantic around the same time. Overall, Joyal Real won 10 of her 30 career starts for earnings of over $450,000.

“Maybe I'm more apt to try a horse on the grass than some folks,” DeMasi posited. “People seem to think I do well with turf horses, especially turf fillies, and maybe it's just because I've been a little more experimental with them.”

That willingness to experiment has paid off over the course of her career: DeMasi has saddled a total of 1,744 winners thus far, including 465 under the Pewter Stable banner she launched with her husband, Greg.

Many of those Pewter Stable winners have been homebreds, the couple taking advantage of the Pennsylvania breeding program for both their own runners and a few sales yearlings. The DeMasis also stand their own stallion in the state, Winchill, a stakes-winning son of Tapit they owned and trained.

“We all know that the breeding business can be so emotionally up and down, so my hat's off to anyone who breeds a horse,” DeMasi said. “It's a good way of keeping around a quality mare rather than just selling her, but when you add up all the money and the time and the loss… We've been through it ourselves, and I've heard the stories, so to see one of those babies go on and do well is just an unbelievable feeling.

“It was really gratifying when (homebred) Winning Time won the Pennsylvania Nursery Stakes last year. He was a baby who took all summer to get ready, because he was very immature, but then he peaked at the right time and won the Nursery. Standing there in the winner's circle, it was like watching some movie made for Disney! My groom actually rubbed both the stallion and the mare, and then the baby!”

Greg DeMasi also enjoys picking horses out at the sales.

“He knows pedigrees, and I know physicals,” Kathleen DeMasi quipped. “My husband, he's such a huge sports fan, and he knows all the numbers. I think he would have made a great scout for baseball, and that's part of why he enjoys the 2-year-old sales so much. He loves trying to find the right potential in horses, and seeing them mature just like rookies in baseball.”

All That Magic was one of those picked out at the OBS Sale, purchased for $40,000. Though the filly made just one start as a 2-year-old, she's clearly blossoming in her new home on the grass.

“It's hard to win four in a row in any kind of race,” said DeMasi. “I think right now I will probably look at a race in Maryland in early September at Pimlico; I think she'll like that course. Now that she's established herself as a turf horse, we kind of can map out where we're going with her. We've always been big believers in letting the horse tell you when they're ready. They don't always have to be racing year-round.”

It's a mantra that's served DeMasi well throughout her career, dating back to 1984. It likely stems from her time spent working under Rick Dutrow Sr.; DeMasi had grown up in Pony Club, and her parents owned a few cheap racehorses, but it was nothing like the education she got in the elder Dutrow's barn.

“He was just a really great guy to work for and you learned a lot and listened and watched,” she said. “He was the kind of guy where if you make a mistake, he'd explain why you made the mistake and tell you how to fix it.”

DeMasi reflected on those early days in the racing game, looking back fondly at her time spent all over the Mid-Atlantic region.

“Back then, there was a different group of people working at the track, more families and generational horsemen,” DeMasi said. “When I was a groom, I think I had one horse that went over to the paddock with a lip chain, but now they almost all do. I question sometimes in my mind: Is it the way we're brought up in this industry, or is it the way we're breeding the horses now?

“Is that part of the reason that HISA was needed? It used to be that you apprenticed under somebody, worked under somebody, and I just think today that the old-school theory of putting in time and learning from the ground up isn't as common.

“But you have to grow with the times. I've been a board member of the Pennsylvania horsemen's association for over 15 years, which is also part of the Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association; when all this change was coming around with HISA, our organization was already sort of already doing a lot of stuff that they're doing now.”

For example, DeMasi was instrumental in getting Pennsylvania's first Thoroughbred aftercare program off the ground. Turning From Home was launched in 2008, and has provided over 3,650 former racehorses with a safe retirement.

“That's been one of the big changes I've seen in the industry,” DeMasi said. “But the whole world is changing, really. I've sort of been just quietly doing my thing in the Mid-Atlantic, so it's not like you're going to see my name all over the place. But this is what I love to do. Even though you might be tired or whatnot, just being around the horses is so enjoyable.”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: For DeMasi, ‘Just Being Around The Horses Is So Enjoyable’ appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The 2-year-old son of Danzing Candy paid $94 for his unlikely victory in the Grade 3 Sanford Stakes, but his win also represented a potential boon for Gonzalez and all of California's breeders in the coming month: it was great marketing for the upcoming California Thoroughbred Breeders Association Northern California Yearling Sale, at which Yo Yo Candy sold for $6,000 in 2022.

“I was getting all these congratulatory texts, and people were telling me, 'This is going to be the best sale we've ever had!'” recalled Gonzalez, a member of the board of directors for the CTBA. “Well, we didn't even get 24 hours to celebrate, because the next day was the news that Golden Gate is shutting down.”

The sale grounds are just 30 minutes away from Golden Gate Fields. The surprise announcement rocked the foundation of California's Thoroughbred industry, especially those farms located nearest to the Northern California racetrack.

Gonzalez quipped: “Well, Golden Gate won't be there for these horses to run at, but we really only sell horses that win graded stakes at Saratoga, so come on up to Pleasanton and get one!”

On a personal level, it was the second major blow for Gonzalez in under a month. He and his family lost several promising yearlings they'd shipped to Kentucky for Keeneland's September Sale when a horrific trailer fire on the Bluegrass Parkway claimed their lives. 

“The highs in this game are few and far between, and the lows can be so crushing, so you can't take the good things for granted when they come,” Gonzalez said.

The loss of those yearlings could be considered an even bigger blow because Gonzalez may not have had to ship them to Kentucky in the first place if California's Thoroughbred sales market was healthy enough to support that kind of quality.

“We really have to jump through a lot more hoops with our good ones,” he said. “Of course, it's  tough to get a weanling to show up to Keeneland in November when you have a farm five minutes away! It's asking a lot of them to be ready for that, but now add shipping across the country. We have pulled it off many times, but I wish we wouldn't have to, that we had a suitable venue here.

“I try to send out to other markets the ones that I think will be valued there, because here in California, we've just had such a struggle with Barretts shutting down. We lost our training sales, which really hurt our yearling sale market by completely eliminating the pinhookers. Now we're feeling it when we don't have strong yearling sales, and it's hard to get people to breed their mares. 

“I manage four stallions in California so I'm heavily invested in the market, and the market only works if people pay to breed their mares, so I think that's why we've seen so many farms shut down over the years. 

“That's why you're seeing fewer breeders in the state, I think. California-breds still run for good purse money, but our sales struggle, so then the breeding industry struggles. At our Select Yearling sale, the median price is $20,000, but I would argue that it takes $35,000 to raise one.

“That's part of why I'm on the CTBA board of directors: I'm trying to push to help fix our sales, because it's up to all of us to help kind of navigate how we move forward. This is a scary time, for sure.”

The sales issue in California brings a bit of a double-edged sword to the success of Yo Yo Candy, as well. 

“We were disappointed with what he sold for,” Gonzalez admitted, referencing the colt's $6,000 sales price in 2022. “We are trying to raise them to be Grade 1 winners, and we have good clients that send us exceptional mares. I'm proud of that, but it doesn't necessarily translate to sales results. It's frustrating, when you win a graded stakes race with a 2-year-old Cal-bred at Saratoga, because as commercial breeders, it would have been nice to have gotten paid for that horse!”

Despite all the frustrations and uncertainties, Gonzalez finds himself in awe of the attitudes of California's horsemen.

“I feel like we are the most resilient of all breeders,” he said. “Through all the lost sales companies, the craziness of the 2019 breakdowns at Santa Anita, the loss of Hollywood Park and Bay Meadows, we have had more bad things happen out here than most other places, but we're still breeding all these mares. It's amazing to talk to the breeders who can't be swayed! 

“We're gonna be doing this longer than anybody else because we are so resilient. You can't tell us bad news that will scare us away. Not one of them has talked about, 'How do we get out?' and I love that. I think it's the love that everybody has for this game here. The resiliency here is amazing, and that makes me really proud to be a part of California breeding.”

That passion for the game isn't something Gonzalez was born into. In college at Cal Poly, Gonzalez needed a job to put himself through the engineering program. He'd grown up around cow horses, and happened to see a farm with horses on it, so he stopped to inquire about work.

“It turns out, of all the places to land, that was a very important farm in the state at the time. Cardiff Stud Farm had these really neat stallions, and B. Wayne Hughes boarded his California horses there prior to purchasing Spendthrift Farm. I remember one day holding horses for the horseshoer and he's telling me about the pedigrees of these horses, yearlings by A.P. Indy and Seattle Slew. 

“Well, I grew up thinking that a $5,000 rope horse was as good as it gets! I wasn't meaning to get into racing, but I was hooked, so I did anything I could to stay a part of it.”

Eventually, the horses began taking time away from his engineering studies, and Gonzalez was put on academic probation. He had progressed at Cardiff to the point that he oversaw a student internship program, and a meeting with a student advisor for that program led to Gonzalez going “all in” to racing. He wound up graduating with an animal science degree and worked at several different farms around the state.

Unfortunately, land values continued going up, so the farms he worked at would sell after just a few years. In 2007, the farm that had been Cardiff Stud Farm was purchased by land investors just before the housing market crash occurred, so Gonzalez was able to work a deal to lease the farm.

“I still had some of the clients of the farm, and they became my clients,” Gonzalez said. “I kind of started my own business then. I never was somebody who wanted to run the show, but there wasn't anything else, so I leased the place and turned it into a big training operation.

“I learned a lot. It's one of those things where you raise a good one, and now you just figure, 'Okay, if I do exactly what I just did, get 10 more of those mares, I'll get 10 more good ones. That's the blueprint, I just have to do it again.' But of course, that's not the case. You can do everything right, but you get some slow ones. You're constantly questioning yourself, because none of them are exactly the same and they all have their own personality and habits.”

As the economy began to get stronger, Gonzalez realized he needed to shift his operation.

“When the market picked back up, the owners wanted to sell,” he explained. “It was tough when clients would show up to see their horses and say, 'Hey, what's with the for sale sign out front?' While the facility was amazing, it wasn't good to operate out of a place that could be taken from us, so we bought our own acreage about 10 years ago now.”

Today, despite the challenges of this industry, Gonzalez finds himself recommitting to the business each and every morning. Just before dawn, he takes the time each day to drive the feed truck himself, doling out the grain and hay to the 100 or so horses on his Checkmate Thoroughbreds property.

“I think that's one of the most important jobs on the farm,” he said. “You're the first to see if something is wrong; which mares don't come up to eat, who's getting bullied, things like that. I'm able to manage the farm better when I'm part of that. I've also been known to join zoom meetings and talk to dignitaries from other countries while I'm cleaning stalls!”

Those board meetings and strategy calls and sales discussions are far from his favorite part of the business, but Gonzalez recognizes their importance all the same.

“You know, I do have a lot of confidence in the leadership that we do have out here,” he said. “We have some very smart people in those meetings that I do believe will be able to fix this and make a transition to a better racing future. That's partly why I keep doing what I'm doing; maybe it's blind faith, but I have to keep doing what I know how to do best, and that's raising good horses.”

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