Tag: Connections

Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Mena’s ‘Pure Courage’ Grants Him Another Chance In Saratoga

Winners aren't people who never fall. They're people who never quit. 

Jockey Miguel Mena knows that truth all too well. A serious ankle injury in early 2018, complicated by fracture blistering which prevented surgical repair, kept him out of the saddle for a long, arduous eight months of physical therapy.

“It has changed my schedule a lot, because I have a crooked foot that is painful all the time,” Mena explained. “I can't run anymore, and even if I do too much walking, it hurts. I have to ride my bike all the time on the backstretch, so I can save my foot for the races. Thankfully it doesn't hurt when I'm on the horses, but it totally changed my routine.”

The 34-year-old native of Peru had been an avid runner, utilizing the exercise to maintain his weight and fitness for his riding career. Now, with running off the table, Mena uses a stationary bike and other low-impact forms of cardio to achieve that goal.

None of those challenges have stopped Mena. In the past several weeks, he's traveled out of state to win both the Grade 3 Ohio Derby at Thistledown with Masqueparade and the G3 Robert G. Dick Memorial at Delaware Park with Dalika. Both horses are trained by Al Stall, Jr., one of the first individuals to give Mena a big shot after his ankle injury.

Mena had a strong 2019 season that earned him the honor of the inaugural Randy Romero “Pure Courage” Award for his comeback, presented in February of 2020. Last June, Stall gave Mena the leg up on his stable star Tom's d'Etat for a win in the G2 Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs.

Tom's d'Etat and Miguel Mena win the 2020 Stephen Foster Stakes at Churchill Downs.

“He had been letting me work Tom's d'Etat in the mornings, and he always told me that if (regular rider Joel) Rosario couldn't ride him, I was gonna be the guy,” Mena relayed. “I'm so grateful for the opportunity to ride that horse. Mr. Stall, he gives me a lot of confidence, he trusts my work, and lets me get on the horses from when they're very young.”

That trust and teamwork has led to another exciting opportunity with improving sophomore colt Masqueparade (Upstart). A winner in his last three starts, including his graded stakes debut in the Ohio Derby, Masqueparade will now head to Saratoga for the G3 Jim Dandy on July 31.

“That colt, we got him as a 2-year-old here, and we were always very high on him,” Mena said. “He showed a lot of talent from day one, but he was kind of a slow learner. He was such a big colt, we knew the talent was there but we had to take our time.

“My boss Al Stall, he's a very patient trainer and he takes his time. Now, in his last two starts, he's really improving and getting better and better.”

Masqueparade wins at Churchill Downs on May 1, 2021

The Jim Dandy will be a significant test for Masqueparade, as the race is expected to draw Juvenile Champion and Belmont Stakes winner Essential Quality. 

“I think we have the horse to beat him,” Mena said. “Between working him and getting him to the races, I've just never seen the horse get tired. He was always getting better slowly, and we just haven't seen the best of him yet. I'm so excited to see the future from him. With his maturity and more races, I think he can beat the top horse in the country.”

Stall echoed Mena's belief in the colt earlier this week.

“He's on a wickedly improving curve, which is good,” Stall told the Daily Racing Form. “We ought to give him a chance to see how far he can take himself.”

It's been 10 years since Mena has ridden at Saratoga, and it's also the site of a dark spot in his career. At age 22, having just arrived at Saratoga as a promising young jockey, Mena developed a drinking problem that threatened to derail his promising career.

Mena took responsibility for his actions and entered Alcoholics Anonymous.

“AA is like another family I have now,” Mena told the Post-Star in 2010. “I never thought I'd meet people who would listen to me the way they do. It's very good. It's a family that supports me. I don't have my family here in the states and AA is a big part of my life now.”

The biggest turning point came when he married his wife April in 2011. The couple subsequently had two daughters, Naelah and Montserrat.

“They're daddy's girls,” Mena said of the 7 and 8-year-old. “They always look for where to spend time with me, going swimming or to the park.”

Thanks to his family's unwavering support, Mena never felt tempted to turn to alcohol during the process of healing from his ankle injury and the difficult eight months of physical therapy.

“I've got a strong support system now, with my family and friends,” Mena explained. “It feels good, you know. It's been a long road, 17 years in the United States with a lot of ups and downs.”

The son and brother of jockeys, Mena remembers following his father to the track in Peru as often as he could, beginning at just six years of age. By age 11 he was grooming horses, and at 14 Mena started at the Jorge Bernardini Yori Jockey School in Peru, which also produced Rafael Bejarano and Hall of Famer Edgar Prado.

He moved to the United States at age 17, and the Midwest-based jockey has now won 2,071 races from just over 16,000 career starts.

“I'm so excited to keep showing up to the track in the mornings, getting on young horses, because those are the ones to take you to the big races,” Mena said. “But really, I just want to win races, whether it's a $5,000 claimer or the Kentucky Derby.

“I came here with a lot of dreams. I came very hungry to work my butt off. I'm so grateful to this country. It has given me a better life, not only for me but for my family in Peru as well. I'm very thankful.”

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Achard Restarts His Career, Claims His First Graded Win

Jockey Alex Achard may have caught some flack from his fellow riders over his celebration in the winning photograph from last Saturday's Grade 3 Chicago Stakes at Arlington Park in Arlington Heights, Ill., but he hasn't let that bother him. After all, it's not every day you get your first graded stakes victory.

“A lot of people made fun of that, but I don't really mind,” the 30-year-old Achard said. “I was so happy. I was confident before the race, but obviously it wasn't easy. 

“When I handicapped the race, Brad Cox's horse was really the horse to beat and after that the race was quite open; I guess I got such a good trip so that's probably where I won the race.

“At that moment (at the finish line) I wasn't really thinking about anything, I was just happy.”

Achard began his riding career in his native France, but made the decision to move to the United States in 2018. He knew the opportunities were more plentiful, but he didn't know which part of the country to try first. 

“I had no clue where to go, absolutely no clue,” Achard said, laughing. “I'd been to the U.S. once before, galloping in California one winter, and when things weren't working out in France after I lost the claim, I knew I wanted to come back to the U.S.

“I called Flo[rent Geroux], even though I didn't know him very well, because when he left there was when I was starting to ride, so we kind of crossed paths with each other. I just knew who he was, and that he was successful.”

Geroux suggested Indiana because the grouping of racetracks in the region are all within driving or short flight distance, Achard said.

It's taken several years to build up his business. When he first arrived, the jockey couldn't find an agent and wound up making his living as an exercise rider.

“Obviously in France I did well years ago, but you restart from the bottom here,” Achard said. “Nobody knows you or what you've done in your own country. It was harder than I thought, I just thought I'd find an agent and it would be all right. When I couldn't find anyone, I just started galloping for Tom Amoss in Indiana, breezing most of his workers. He sent me to Saratoga for the summer with a string of 10 to 12 horses. Obviously I didn't race, but it was a great experience.”

After Achard returned to Indiana, he found an agent and picked up a few mounts at the end of the 2018 meet. He followed the local circuit to Turfway Park in Florence, Ky. for the winter, and earned a pair of seconds that December, but it wasn't until March of 2019 that Achard finally got his first win in the U.S.

He wound up winning 17 races in 2019, and last year, despite the struggles and restrictions implemented by the pandemic, Achard improved his statistics to win 33 races and top $1 million in earnings. 

Achard's first stakes win came in late summer of 2020 at Indiana Grand, winning the $100,000 Indiana First Lady Stakes on Aug. 26 aboard Wellington Wonder for trainer Michelle Lovell.

“I'm so happy for Alex,” Lovell told Indiana Grand's publicity department after that win. “When he first got here, I saw him win for someone else and thought he could really ride. He has always liked this filly and he knows her really well. She only has one big stride and he knows how to time his move. He works so hard, so I'm glad to see him get his first stakes win.”

In 2021, Achard has already racked up 23 wins. He has able to travel around the Midwest much more due to the relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions, and made a specific request to his agent to try to find mounts at Arlington Park.

“I just told my agent at the beginning of the year, this is the last year of Arlington, and I've never been and I want to see it,” Achard said. “I told her, 'I want to ride there before it's gone, even if the horse has three legs!' I had just heard so many good things about it, and it's really beautiful. It's so sad to think that this might be the last year.”

The possibility of shutting down Arlington reminded Achard of a similar situation in France.

“They just did that to a big track in Paris last year, a beautiful racetrack where you could run 1 ¼ miles straight,” he explained. “There were only two racetracks in Europe where you can do that, Newmarket being the other, but they just shut down the track last year. That was pretty sad.”

Still, it was that drive to see Arlington Park, plus his willingness and desire to ride races at every available opportunity, that earned him the mount aboard the Anna Meah-trained Abby Hatcher in the Chicago Stakes.

The G3 was Meah's first graded stakes win as well, and she credited a clever ride from Achard in her celebratory social media post.

Though he wasn't raised in the sport of horse racing, Achard comes by his love of horses and competition naturally. Both his parents are involved in show jumping in France, and for a time during his youth they also exercised racehorses in the mornings.

“Actually, I grew up with horses, but I never wanted to learn how to ride because I was around horses every day and I wasn't interested in riding,” Achard revealed. “It came up way later, when I started riding at 13 or 14, but I could have been on the horses at probably three years old.

“I just fell in love with the horses, and that's the main thing you need. I also love racing, the competition of it, so it's a good match for me.”

Looking forward, Achard says he can't compare himself to the success of his fellow countrymen Julien Leparoux, Geroux, or even Flavien Prat, with whom he did ride a bit in France. 

“What I want is to ride the most winners I can, obviously if they are good races it's even better,” Achard said. “I still have some work to do, but I don't put a lot of pressure on myself, I just try to do my thing. I don't compare myself to them, but if I can do some of what they've accomplished, that would be amazing.”

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Pearl Tiara Brings Her Small-Scale Breeders Full Circle

When Loren Hebel-Osborne needed a moment to get her emotions in check, she did what she's always done: she leaned on her horse.

Pearl Tiara gracefully allowed her co-owner and co-breeder to press a kiss to her forehead as they stood in the winner's circle. Perhaps the 3-year-old filly was enjoying the extra attention after she dominated her competition by 8 ¾ lengths in last Wednesday's $75,000 Hoosier Breeders Sophomore Stakes at Indiana Grand.

“I was holding back a really ugly cry,” Hebel-Osborne said Saturday from her home at Deerfield Farm just outside Louisville, Ky. “It was like the release of a pressure valve; some people will understand that. It was this happy, exhausted, just full-circle moment of overwhelming emotion.”

Pearl Tiara's win was so extra-special because she is the first stakes winner for stallion Majestic Harbor, whom Hebel-Osborne and her husband, Kentucky Speaker of the House David Osborne, also campaigned on the racetrack with a group of friends. The couple has worked diligently to support in his burgeoning stallion career, and from a first crop of just 15 foals, Majestic Harbor was the leading first crop sire in California last year.

Of those first 15, the Osbornes foaled out and raised eight babies on their farm. For an operation that typically bred two to three mares in a year, making the jump to eight was a significant financial, emotional, and physically arduous undertaking.

“With all that we've done to support him, seeing him get that first stakes winner, it was just like, 'Oh my gosh, it actually worked,'” Hebel-Osborne said. “Being a small-time breeder, you never know if there's a place for us in this business anymore. It's certainly hard to compete, and we're still fishing in a pretty small pond, but winning that race felt absolutely incredible.

“We have invested over 10,000 hours from planning to utero, etc., and it all came together for this one moment.”

It was also emotional for more personal reasons, Hebel-Osborne acknowledged. This was the first major racing victory since the passing of her father, Charles Hebel, in September of 2020. 

“Racing has always been a family affair for us,” she said. “He was a horrible handicapper, the consummate two-dollar bettor, but he loved the family aspect of the game. He was one of the partners in Majestic Harbor so we got to ride the very top of the wave together, and I know he would have loved to have been there for this.”

In fact, Hebel was one of the partners who encouraged his daughter to go out and buy yearlings at the 2009 Keeneland September sale. In hindsight, it was a brilliant idea: the economic crash meant nice horses were selling for rock-bottom prices, and they'd been able to buy horses they could never have afforded otherwise. 

At the time, however, going to that sale seemed like a really big risk. 

Hebel-Osborne had just lost her job when Visa pulled out of the Triple Crown sponsorship, and the state of the economy meant the prospect of new employment was much more challenging. Still, both her parents and her husband helped put together a group of friends to buy some horses, and off they went to Keeneland.

They would end up buying six yearlings that year, including a colt by Rockport Harbor for $20,000 and a filly by Mineshaft for $22,000. Years later, those two would become the parents of Pearl Tiara.

All six were brought home to Deerfield after the sale, where they enjoyed lush pastures, personalized attention, and careful mentorship by the Osbornes' retired racehorses.

The Rockport Harbor colt was nicknamed “Rocky,” and was later registered as Majestic Harbor. He flashed talent as a 2-year-old, enough that a potential sale was brokered, but on the morning of his veterinary exam Rocky got loose at the Fair Grounds and slid into a dumpster, winding up with enough road rash and bumps and bruises to negate the sale.

The Osbornes would be glad he did, even if it took a few more years to achieve his maximum potential. 

It wasn't until 2014, at the age of six, that Majestic Harbor achieved the pinnacle of his career when triumphing at 14-1 odds in the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita. Majestic Harbor continued to race until age eight, compiling a record of 10 wins, eight seconds, and seven thirds from 42 starts with earnings over $1.2 million.

Majestic Harbor wins the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita on June 28, 2014.

“He was so sound for so long, and that's the kind of horse we want to support as breeders,” Hebel-Osborne said. “We also breed for disposition, and he has the best brain and seems to be passing that on to his foals.”

Majestic Harbor stood his first season in 2017 at Swifty Farms in Indiana, siring 13 fillies from his 15-strong first crop. After his second year, Majestic Harbor moved to Harris Farms in California for the 2019 breeding season. 

Last year, with his first foals racing as 2-year-olds, Majestic Harbor earned the leading first crop sire title in California. He did so without siring a stakes winner in 2020, though Pearl Tiara and another Majestic Harbor filly, Diamond Solitaire, in whom the Osbornes are also co-owners and breeders, both raced well as juveniles.

This year's statistics seem to show that his runners are getting better with age, as Pearl Tiara and Diamond Solitaire ran one-two in Wednesday's stakes race. Pearl Tiara is trained by Tim Glyshaw, who also trained the Osbornes' Unreachable Star, the record-setting Indiana-bred who also has a stakes race named after him.

“Having Pearl (Tiara) and Diamond (Solitaire) finish one-two in the stakes race for Majestic Harbor is a thrill,” said Hebel-Osborne. “And, this is the first time Pearl has beaten Diamond. We saw Diamond start moving toward her and thought she might catch her, but Pearl said, 'Not today.'”

Hebel-Osborne reflected on the risks they'd taken to support Majestic Harbor. They'd purchased new mares to breed to the stallion. They'd had to build additional stalls to accommodate the increased number of mares and foals, and even borrowed a few stalls and pastures from the sporthorse farm next door. They'd hired additional help, and she and her husband spent countless hours performing barn chores themselves. 

When he moved to California, the Osbornes divided their mares and sent some to Harris Farms along with him, launching their first California-bred operation. Of course, every winter when Indiana Grand shuts down for the season, the Osbornes have brought their racing stock home to Deerfield to give them a vacation.

Pearl Tiara and Diamond Solitaire even spent the winter racing each other around the same paddock.

The risks have paid off, with Majestic Harbor doing his part to make a name for himself in the breeding shed.

“I'm not talking down about our mares, but there's no Serena's Song out there in our pastures,” David Osborne said. “If he can do this with the stock that he's gotten, I just think that says a lot about his ability.”

Looking to the future, the Osbornes are entertaining the idea of bringing Majestic Harbor back to Kentucky, where his racing longevity might be attractive to local breeders. 

In the meantime, things at Deerfield have scaled back a bit. Four yearlings stand in the paddocks from last year's breeding season, and just one foal is racing around her mother's legs. 

As it had been for most of the world, the pandemic had been a season filled with challenges both personal and professional for the Osbornes. Besides the struggles of working through a legislative session with COVID-19 restrictions, Hebel-Osborne faced the unknowns of scheduling sporting events through her job as a sales executive for QuintEvents.

This year, the Osbornes lost a mare and her Majestic Harbor foal to a difficult birth in February, while another mare delivered a dead foal. 

Along with the loss of Hebel-Osborne's father last fall, the couple lost both of their beloved Corgis in just 12 months.

Life circles on, and Hebel-Osborne opened her heart to a beautiful German Shepherd puppy named Kayzie in November. A graduate of the Paws Behind Bars program at Bluegrass Adoption, Kayzie has enthusiastically taken up her role as head of security at Deerfield.

Even Osborne, who said he wasn't quite ready for another dog, seems to have found plenty of room in his heart for Kayzie's loveable antics as she learned about farm dog life.

“This can be a tough business,” Hebel-Osborne concluded. “But when you have days like that (Wednesday at Indiana Grand), it makes everything seem worth it. I know my dad was cheering us on.”

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘I Can’t Imagine Doing Anything Else’

Disruption is the name of the racing game in Maryland at the moment, with a massive overhaul of Laurel Park's racing surface forcing trainers to find other accommodations to condition their equine charges. For veteran trainer Jerry Robb, it's been his above average afternoon successes that have kept him from wanting to throw in the towel. 

“I had a really good month last month,” he explained. “With only 26 horses, we won 10 races last month, and another six or seven this month.”

Driving back and forth between Timonium and Delaware Park to oversee his split string of horses has been hard on both Robb's mind and his wallet, but at the end of the day, the long-time horseman wouldn't have it any other way.

“I'm probably not ever going to retire,” Robb said, adding: “They'll probably just stick me in the ground one morning at post time!”

With several top-quality horses in the barn, Robb hopes that day remains well in the future. Filling his stalls are the seven-time stakes-winning 3-year-old filly Street Lute, $780,000 earner Anna's Bandit, and the latter's 2-year-old half-sister, first-out winner Bandits Warrior.

“That's what keeps you going, having nice horses in the barn,” said Robb. “There are definitely hard days, especially dealing with trying to find help and all this driving. But, getting back in the winner's circle, there's just nothing like it.”

Street Lute won the June 13 Stormy Blues Stakes at Pimlico, already her seventh stakes win from 11 career starts. Robb selected the daughter of Street Magician for just $10,500 as a yearling at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearling sale, and she's already earned over $190,000 on the track.

“She's Maryland-bred, Delaware-certified, and Virginia-certified,” Robb explained. “Being able to run her in those (restricted stakes) spots has been helpful, though she's won in some open spots too. She'll run at Colonial next.”

Street Lute wins the Stormy Blues Stakes at Pimlico Race Course.

Anna's Bandit ran on the same card, finishing fifth in the Shine Again Stakes in first start since July of 2020. The 7-year-old West Virginia-bred has won a total of 11 stakes races in her career, and even ran third in the G3 Barbara Fritchie Stakes last February.

“She'd been ready to run for two months, but she'll have needed the race,” Robb said. “It's been hard to find a spot for her, but we'll keep her in the Maryland and West Virginia-bred races for a while.”

As a homebred for his wife, Gina, under the banner No Guts No Glory Farm, Anna's Bandit has been a major boon for Robb's stable. She is out of the No Armistice mare One Armed Bandit, a Robb-selected $13,500 yearling whom he trained to earn over $300,000 on the track. In 2019, she won nine of her 11 starts, all but one in a stakes race, to be named the co-winningest horse of the year.

Anna's Bandit's sire, Great Notion, commanded a stud fee of just $3,500 when she was conceived. 

Anna's Bandit winning the 2019 Maryland Million Distaff

“We've always dealt with bottom of the barrel horses in terms of prices,” Robb said. “Mostly I've been lucky I guess, there's no real art to it. It doesn't matter how cheap they are, they've got to have the heart and the willpower. You saw that with the Kentucky Derby winner this year.”

The top horse in Robb's training history remains Maryland Thoroughbred Hall of Famer Little Bold John, another “bottom-barrel” horse conceived from a $1,500 stud fee out of a mare Robb traded for. The impressive Little Bold John raced 105 times with 38 wins and almost $2 million in earnings before being retired in 1993. His 25 stakes wins were a Maryland-bred record until surpassed by Ben's Cat in 2016.

“It's something I'm extremely proud of, that I've won a stakes race nearly every year since 1980,” Robb said. 

Robb saddled his first winner with Hail Aristocrat at Penn National in 1973, and he was named Maryland Trainer of the Year in 1992. Robb registered a career-high 114 wins in 1988 and has reached the $1 million mark in seasonal earnings 14 times, with a high of $2.3 million in 2002. A four-time meet-leading trainer in Maryland, Robb overall has had more than 12,500 starters and $39 million in purses earned

He has won nine career graded-stakes, five of them courtesy of Little Bold John from 1987-89. Other graded winners are He Is Risen, Lightning Paces, Pioneer Boy and Debt Ceiling, his most recent, in the 2013 Bashford Manor (G3).

He also has a strong history of representing horsemen. He served on the Maryland Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association Board of Directors in the late 1970s, and was later involved in the co-founding of the MTHA. In the late 1980s, he implemented the first condition book index that the country had ever seen.

“I got started as a gallop boy for James McGill at Marlboro Racetrack, and eventually I bought a couple horses and he taught me how to train them,” Robb said. “It's just grown from there, and now I can't imagine doing anything else.”

When he achieved his 2,000th training victory last February, Robb explained that the milestone means more than words can express for his small operation.

“It means a lot, because I've always had a small outfit, 20-30 horses,” he said. “We never had the big outfit that gets those kinds of numbers. We had to grind it out, 50 a year. That's what we do and, hopefully, I win 50 more [this] year.”

Trainer Jerry Robb celebrates his 2,000th career victory

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