Tag: Connections

Here's something you don't often hear coming from a jockey's lips:

“I can't push it too hard because if I ride too many, they're going to take away my Social Security.”

Then again, Kim Sampson isn't the kind of jockey you come across every day. She hopes to soon be recognized as a Guinness World Record holder.

In April of this year, Sampson returned to the winner's circle for the first time in 38 years. According to the online Guinness Book of World Records, the longest period of time between jockey wins previously was 12 years and 260 days. Sampson rode her last victory in October 1983 at Fairmount Park and hung up her tack the following year. She'd grown tired of struggling to make weight, and while she was growing burned out on racing, Sampson said she never totally ruled out the idea of getting into the starting gate again.

If you look Sampson up in Equibase, as she says, “you can't find me.” The first phase of her career as a jockey started at the end of 1980, and she rode her best season as a bug in 1981. In 1982, she gave birth to a son and returned in 1983. All told, she believes she has won 83 races.

Sampson came to horses through her family. One of nine children, Sampson had a Quarter Horse she rode alongside a racehorse her father bred from the family of Man o' War. Sampson and her brother would often be tasked with colt breaking their father's training stock. Both of them wanted to learn to gallop, and Sampson said her brother would often get the first shot. Sampson would watch what he did wrong, take mental notes, and swing aboard for the next workout, shining by comparison.

“I'd see where he got thrown off and say, I know what to do now,” she said.

Her skills with difficult horses caught the eye of Jerry Lee Sampson, who was training horses at the same facility. Jerry hired Kim to gallop for him in the mornings before school, and when Kim turned 18, the two were married. Kim said it was her husband who convinced her to begin riding races after he grew frustrated with a few rides given to his horses by professional jockeys.

The life of a jockey was different in the early 1980s, Sampson said. Even at Fairmount, fields were often full with AEs ready to draw in if a horse scratched. The jockey colony could be 30 or 40 riders, and riding through traffic was an everyday occurrence.

“It wasn't like racing today,” she said. “It was always a ten-horse field, so it was nothing like riding today. If it was riding like back then, I'd say the heck with it. You were in tight on a regular basis, but you kept control of your horse.”

Sampson said she was among the first female jockeys to succeed at Fairmount, and did so despite not being given the same quality of horses as her male competitors. She kept her own book and wasn't afraid to stick up for herself. She didn't know it at the time, but she said Jerry, who remained an active owner/breeder/trainer, was sticking up for her too.

“There was times I felt like I was boxed in,” she said. “But they were fearful of my husband. He threatened one of them one time, and I didn't even know he did it. I think it was one of the other people in the grandstand who'd bet on me and said something to him [about rough riding].

“I feel like in a sense, they respected me. It was just the trainers, they weren't giving me a shot back then.”

Weights were also lower in those days, which was a struggle for Sampson even before she took time away to give birth. When she walked away in 1984, she was relieved to stop dieting.

She took a small string of her husband's horses to Chicago and found some success in the late 1980s, but she and Jerry had gotten frustrated with the expense involved in breeding and racing and sold their horses.

When Sampson left the track, she took jobs at a bottling plant, ran the couple's Bonanza Campground, and eventually settled into Jerry's profession of iron working. It was hard work; Sampson's job usually involved working on bridge decks and metal buildings, assembling steel pieces on the ground and sending them up into the air for a crew to apply to a structure. Then, Sampson would come along and finish bolting them together. She spent 28 years in the profession until she broke her hand on a trail ride in 2019.

True to the gritty attitude of professional horsewomen, Sampson saw the injury as an opportunity.

“I could tape my fingers together and still gallop,” she said. “So I did that and I'd just get on a few a day, just for [Eddie Essenpreis]. I just kept doing it through the winter. This winter here, the other guy never showed up, so I just kept doing it.”

Sampson had worked for Essenpreis early in her career and felt she could trust him to put her on horses who would help her regain her fitness. She soon began working horses for Dennis Higgins, also, and now gets on at least 15 each morning.

When her hand healed and she was cleared to return to work, Sampson gave it some thought. She was approaching 60 and thought it was time to retire from iron work … but not from racehorses.

Higgins and others on the backstretch talked her into race riding again at the age of 63.

“They bought my helmet and stuff,” she said. “My stuff was dry rotted!”

Sampson made her first start back on April 19 and picked up her first win on April 30 with Higgins' Lonesome Dream. She teamed up with the gelding again in June for an allowance win. Sampson said it's easy to look at Lonesome Dream in the paddock and doubt he's got the goods (perhaps not dissimilarly to the mistake an observer may make about her skills due to her age), but it's all about attitude.

“He's a pretty cool horse,” she said. “He's laidback. When they have him in the paddock, one rider was laughing at him saying, I hope he runs faster than that. You take him to the racetrack, he just wants to stand there for a minute. I just kind of let him have his way and we click pretty good.”

Much like Lonesome Dream, Sampson has the guts for the job but is in no hurry for the next step. She said fellow riders were a little suspicious of her appearance in the jocks' room, fearing she was aiming to take food off their tables. As someone who's retired, she said, she isn't interested in riding races in such volume as to create a threat to them.

“I wish I could say I'd go for my 100 wins, because I've won 83 now, but I'd lose my Social Security if I did that,” she said. “The meet here ends in September and I'll probably finish out this. I won't be back next year. Come this fall, I'll be back trail riding.”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: 38 Years Between Trips To The Winner’s Circle appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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When his second-generation homebred Stitched was beaten almost 32 lengths in his first start, Nathan McCauley could have lost faith in the Mizzen Mast colt. 

Instead, assistant trainer Travis Foley called Nathan and urged him not to give up just yet.

“I was thinking, 'Okay, what's the cheapest maiden claiming race they run at the Fair Grounds,'” Nathan admitted. “Travis called me right after the race and said, 'Man, Dad (trainer Greg Foley) and I really like this horse, we believe in him.'”

That faith has continued to bear fruit in 2022 as Stitched has put together three straight victories, including last week's $150,000 Mystic Lake Derby at Canterbury Park in Minnesota. Later this year, the 3-year-old will target the Grade 2, $300,000 Secretariat Stakes on the revamped Arlington Million card at Churchill Downs.

“There's nothing like a horse that really inspires you,” said Nathan. “These horses have just done so much for me. A homebred got me out of the car business and created an opportunity for me to get into horses full time, and this year I got to go to Royal Ascot and Stitched paid for the trip! These horses just inspire the hell out of me. There's nothing better than having raised a horse and seeing them race.”

Nathan grew up in Kentucky, though horses weren't on his radar right away. It was an afternoon of skipping school and a trip to Keeneland that hooked the young man on horse racing. 

“I grew up a giant sports fan, but my grandmother used to talk about the Kentucky Derby,” Nathan said. “That day at Keeneland, it had the competitiveness of sports, the beauty of horses, and the aspect of gambling was exciting. All those things combined made horse racing really easy to fall in love with.”

Nathan followed his father Ron McCauley into the car business, eventually moving to Tennessee and developing a handful of dealerships, but he never lost that passion for racing. He and his brother Alex convinced their father to purchase a racehorse at Keeneland in 2007. One quickly became four, and that fourth purchase, Golden Doc A, won the G2 Las Virgenes Stakes at Santa Anita just three weeks after the family bought her.

Ron and Angela McCauley made the decision to invest in racing by building a breeding farm in Jessamine County, and all five children got involved in the sport. 

Nathan stayed involved with his parents' racing interests, and when he sold out of the car business in 2016 made the decision to move back to Kentucky and work with racehorses full time. In 2017, Nathan took over the family farm full-time; his lease has allowed his parents to begin their retirement.

The horse that made that decision possible was Free Rose, a multiple graded stakes winner. Ron and Tevis McCauley claimed his dam, Birdie Birdie, at Mountaineer in 2010 for just $5,000. The mare never ran again, but Nathan orchestrated a mating to Munnings that produced the colt he would name Free Rose in 2013. 

When the colt did not meet his reserve at the following year's Fasig-Tipton yearling sale, Nathan decided to race him. He broke his maiden at Parx in a $40,000 maiden claimer late in his 2-year-old season, but in late 2016 Free Rose had progressed to winning graded stakes on the turf in Southern California. 

“I've had great luck with running in a maiden claiming race to qualify them for starter allowances, giving the horse a chance to compete early on and give them that confidence,” Nathan explained. 

The same progression helped to develop Stitched, alongside Nathan's relationship with the Foley family. 

“The Foley team is the best-kept secret in America,” Nathan proclaimed. “I was looking for a trainer and I knew (Greg Foley's sons) Travis and Alex. I knew that Greg was a great horseman, and I asked my brother Tevis (also a trainer) about Greg. Tevis, who is a much better horseman than I am, said Greg was a real class horseman. I just had a feeling that it would be a good fit. 

“With Stitched, I always had the feeling that he needed to be developed. He needed a trainer to not judge him right off the bat, and Greg has been amazing at that.”

Named for a clothing store in Las Vegas, Stitched is co-owned by a group of friends who'd met up at that store to purchase suits for the races.

“They're an amazing group of guys,” Nathan said. “When I bought Stitched back as a yearling, it was their idea to put this partnership together, so credit to them on that!

“I call them the 'OG's.' They were my first really awesome partners in the horse business, all a spinoff of Bing Bush's Abbondanza partnership. Bing is one of my best friends, and we've all become great friends and I've partnered consistently with them.”

Those relationships with people are what keep Nathan's passion for the horse business going strong. His business partner in River Oak Farm is his best friend Lindsay LaRoche of Highland Yard, and the other relationships with clients and mentors he's met along the way have become the best part of Nathan's day-to-day routine.

“There are some amazing people in my life that encouraged me and coached me along the way,” Nathan said. “It's kind of been the '10,000-hour rule;' I've obsessed over pedigrees every day for 10 years, so now it does kind of come naturally. I pick up easily on it when a stallion's doing something unusual, though I'm still wrong as much as I'm right. I started with not a lot of money, so my income has been from the horse business. I began by breeding horses on a budget and I was lucky enough to breed some really nice horses on $10,000 stud fees, which is what I could afford. I just noticed the outliers, which stallions could help me compete.”

Perhaps the top horse Nathan has bred and sold is Grade 1 winner Eda, while he's also been involved in the ownership of multiple Grade 1-placed, Grade 2 winner Venetian Harbor. 

The niche Nathan has developed over the past five years has been to purchase 50 mares a year off the track, whether via claim, private purchase, or auction. He puts the maiden mares in foal with the intention of selling them at the breeding stock sales.

“Kind of by default we turn into breeders,” he said. “Maybe 40 of the 50 will make it to the sale, and then maybe 35 of the 40 will sell. The ones we like more than the market, we typically keep.

“It's pretty wild, because we're looking for mares 365 days a year. It's about every week that we're buying a horse, selling a horse. We're looking to claim horses all the time, scouring stakes races, looking for horses at the end of their careers. This year was especially challenging, and we are constantly having to pivot. 

“We used to buy a lot of $50,000 broodmares that today cost $70,000 or $80,000. We've had to buy stuff a little differently. The 'obvious' horse is bringing 50 percent more than it should at the sales, while a nice horse might bring 80 percent of its value in comparison. It's all about capitalizing at the right time.”

It certainly seems to be the right time for Stitched, maturing and improving with each start. 

“We'll keep him with 3-year-olds for the rest of the year, and hopefully we'll have a lot of fun with him as a 4 and 5-year-old,” Nathan said. 

 

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘Nothing Like A Horse That Really Inspires You’ appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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When a trainer drops a claim on a horse, it's done with the expectation that the runner will at least make their money back and hopefully earn a few trips to the winner's circle.

Kitodan put trainer Eric Foster on the fast track to that goal on June 4, when he closed like lightning to win the Audubon Stakes at Churchill Downs by a head, blowing up the tote board in the process at field-high odds of 40-1.

It was just three weeks earlier when Foster claimed the 3-year-old Point of Entry colt for $80,000 out of a Churchill optional claiming race, in partnership with Douglas Miller and William Wargel. In the Audubon, Kitodan more than earned back his claim price with the $116,990 winner's share of the purse, and he delivered Foster his first stakes victory in 11 years of training.

As a veteran of the Ellis Park platoon of Kentucky horsemen, dating back to his youth in nearby Owensboro, Foster is used to being an underdog when he ships east to Louisville or Lexington. In fact, he rather prefers the role; especially when it pays off.

“We thought we had a shot,” Foster said. “I guess next time, we'll be expecting him to win, but it was kind of nice not having those high expectations. You get let down so much, whether it's gambling, or if you own a horse or train a horse, or when you're rooting for a horse, you just get let down a lot, so you hate to get your expectations up real high and set yourself up.”

Kitodan's breakthrough stakes victory was the latest highlight of what has already been a career season for Foster. His earnings in 2021 were nearly double his previous high-water mark, and he has already surpassed that total in 2022. In addition to earning his first stakes win this season, Foster picked up his first graded stakes placing earlier this year when Johnny Unleashed finished second behind Golden Pal in the Grade 2 Shakertown Stakes at Keeneland.

Foster said the improved performance over the past two years is due in large part to a greater investment in his racing stock, whether that means claiming at a higher price point or spending a little more at auction.

“There's not any secret to it,” he said. “It's just hard for a guy that's starting out like I did to breed your own or buy something cheap at the sale. Even though it doesn't sound like a lot to some people, $80,000 is a lot to claim a horse for. There are guys that have been doing this their whole life and haven't claimed a horse for $80,000, and I feel blessed to be able to do that.”

It's been a steady, home-grown climb for Foster to get to this point. He started going fast in the saddle in local barrel races, where he became a nationally-ranked competitor.

“As a young man, I actually led the nation in barrel racing at several points, and was ranked in the top five in the world several years in a row,” he said. “My dad, Stewart, hauled me all over the country. We stayed on the road weekly.

Foster went on to work at Ellis Park under local trainers including Franklin Cooper, James Mattingly, Shirley Green, and John Hancock. He also worked in the Kenny McPeek barn when the trainer had Tejano Run.

“I was a pretty good rider, and I seemed to get all the bad actors,” he said. “Back then, anyone that was having any trouble, I usually got nominated to ride those.”

Foster briefly hung his own shingle as a trainer during his early 20s at the turn of the century, and then he returned to training full-time after a decade-plus hiatus.

“I couldn't quit thinking about [the horses] and came back to them,” he said.

Looking at his form, Kitodan didn't appear to fit the profile of a claiming horse. He entered the May 15 optional claiming race on a three-race winning streak, which started in the Gulfstream Park barn of trainer Jose Delgado and owner Joker Racing. Kitodan dominated a starter optional claiming field by 5 1/4 lengths, and he was picked up out of that race by trainer Mike Maker and owners Paradise Farms Corp. and David Staudacher for a $35,000 tag.

Under Maker's guidance, Kitodan closed hard to win another Gulfstream starter allowance by a neck, then he shipped north to Turfway Park, where he earned his first black type victory in the Rushaway Stakes by a convincing 3 1/2 lengths.

Kitodan was entered for an $80,000 claiming tag the following race at Churchill Downs, and he finished a late-closing third before ending up in Foster's barn after the race.

Why was a newly-minted stakes winner who was clearly maintaining strong form put in for the tag? Foster speculated the decision was rooted in economics and the condition book.

“They claimed him for $35,000 and won an allowance at Gulfstream, then they went and won the Rushaway,” he said. “They had already made money, and now they're going to sell him for double what they gave for him. They're in it to make money, and they couldn't lose at that point.

“Unless they just waited for this race, it might have been the only spot to run,” he continued. “I'm stuck like that with another horse I've got. Once you run those conditions out, there's not a lot of races.”

In the Churchill winner's circle following the Audubon, Foster admitted facing a similar conundrum with Kitodan, mostly entering him in the race because his options were somewhat limited off the claim.

With that being said, Foster is slow to take too much credit for Kitodan's stakes win.

“This horse here, you claim him and run him back three weeks later, how much credit can you take for it, other than finding him and being gutsy enough to do it?” he said. “I'm blessed.”

The Foster team is a small one, with the key players being himself, wife Brooklyn Foster who manages the barn, and assistant trainer Juan Medina. Their operation is based on a 16-acre farm in Utica, Ky., near Owensboro.

Eric will still ride several horses in the mornings, but said he hasn't gotten on Kitodan, who he described as “a handful.”

However, he has spent plenty of time aboard Johnny Unleashed, a Colonel John gelding that he bought for $10,000 on the last day of the 2018 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, shopping out of the back ring. Foster has handled every aspect of the horse's training from breaking to the racetrack, and the gelding has rewarded him with $286,406 in career earnings, and the trainer's first graded stakes placing.

Johnny Unleashed will aim to continue Foster's upward trajectory on Saturday at Churchill Downs, when he'll compete in the Mighty Beau Overnight Stakes, going five furlongs on the turf.

“I'm thinking he's gonna have a good shot,” Foster said. “I'm proud of him.”

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