Tag: Connections

Thirteen and a half years ago, the diminutive bay gelding named Mine That Bird was hauled over 1,000 miles from New Mexico to Churchill Downs by his trainer, Chip Woolley. His 50-1 upset will forever remain a legend in the history of the Kentucky Derby.

This year, another trainer from New Mexico could be poised to take his shot at the Run for the Roses: H. Ray Ashford, Jr., 51, sent out Wildatlanticstorm to win the $400,000 Springboard Mile at Remington Park on Dec. 17.

“I thought he was overlooked in the betting, because he really hadn't done anything wrong,” Ashford said. “I thought we had a legitimate shot to do very well.”

The 2-year-old son of Stormy Atlantic defeated his rivals by 1 ¼ lengths at odds of 15-1. 

“He was sitting third early, and I figured we had a shot to finish second or third,” recalled Ashford. “Even if he'd run third, we'd still have been pretty proud of that! Then at about the quarter pole, when he took over, I thought he might be able to win it.

“Me and my two boys were pretty fired up there at the finish line! I've got a little sore throat now, for sure, but I've felt pretty good the last couple of days!”

The Jim Jorgensen-owned Wildatlanticstorm didn't earn any points toward the Kentucky Derby since he raced on Lasix, but Ashford is planning to take the colt off that medication for his next start on the road that hopefully leads to Louisville, Ky., on the first Saturday in May.

Whether that next start comes at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas or at the Fair Grounds in Louisiana is yet to be decided, but even a chance at the dream that is the Kentucky Derby is enough to have Ashford's emotions running high.

“It's a good problem to have, trying to figure this stuff out,” he said. “We're excited, especially for a homebred, an Iowa-bred, to even be thinking about this is pretty dang cool. We have plenty of decisions to make.”

Ashford also trained Wildatlanticstorm's dam for Jorgensen, a daughter of Big Brown named Imsortaspecial. She won four of her 19 starts for earnings just shy of $90,000, but it's the mare's name that holds special meaning for Ashford, since he trained another horse by that name 20 years earlier.

“The very first stakes race I won as a trainer was this little $10,000 added race at Ruidoso Downs (the 1994 Ruidoso Sprint Championship),” he explained. “The horse's name was Imsortaspecial, and he was ridden in that race by Todd Fincher.”

(Fincher is now among the leading trainers in New Mexico history, and even won the 2020 edition of the Springboard Mile with Senor Buscador after stabling the horse in Ashford's barn.)

When Ashford first caught sight of the Big Brown filly at the 2015 Keeneland September Yearling sale, he thought she looked just like the original Imsortaspecial.

“That horse always had a special spot in my heart, and she looked a lot like him, so I named her after him,” Ashford said. “When she hurt her ankle, we decided to breed her.”

Wildatlanticstorm, born in Iowa, is Imsortaspecial's first foal. 

One of the most impressive things about Wildatlanticstorm is his size: the colt stands “probably about 16 hands, maybe 16.1,” but he weighed in at a whopping 1,238 pounds ahead of the Springboard Mile. 

“He's not giant tall, just pretty stocky,” Ashford said. “I watched the replay about 10 times, and he's just bigger than those horses. But he's pretty easy on himself in the mornings; he doesn't try to run off or anything. If you want him to put in a little maintenance work in :51, that's cool, or if you wanna go in :46, that's cool too.”

Ashford knows most racehorses aren't that easy; he grew up watching his father train horses as a hobby.

“I can't remember us not having racehorses, since I was a little bitty kid,” Ashford said. “In the summer we would go to Juarez, Mexico, and train there. It wasn't a lot of money but we had a lot of fun!”

When he graduated high school in 1989, Ashford moved to Ruidoso Downs the very next day. 

“I never looked back,” he said. “I had two horses for my dad, and I worked for a guy riding the pony and in the barn. I was working pretty hard, so eventually I figured I might as well do it for myself!

“There's been ups and downs, of course. There's a few days when you're not winning any races, and I think, 'I might have should have went to school!' But I have no regrets. I wouldn't change anything that I've done. I've met a lot of good people, made a lot of friends going around doing this.

“When I quit getting butterflies when they go in the gate, I'll quit doing this.”

Now based out of Oklahoma, Ashford also runs horses in Iowa in the summer, Texas in the winter, and still a few in New Mexico, as well. His stable is in the midst of a career year for earnings in 2022, approaching $1.13 million, with 43 winners. 

However, Ashford has never run a horse at Churchill Downs, nor has he ever entered a horse in a graded stakes race. He hopes those two facts are about to change.

Earlier this year, Wildatlanticstorm was broken out at the training center in Claremore, Okla., before beginning his early lessons under the guidance of Ashford's two sons, Tristan, 20, and Logan, 17.

“The boys kept bragging on this horse, said that he was outworking everything they put him against,” Ashford said. “I was at Lone Star Park for the meet, and I pulled the 'dad card' and said, 'Well, then, you boys might have to bring that horse on over to me!'”

Wildatlanticstorm ran second in his debut at Lone Star in July, then broke his maiden at second asking in his home state of Iowa at Prairie Meadows. Shipped back to Oklahoma, Wildatlanticstorm won an allowance race, was just defeated in the Kip Deville Stakes, and won the Clever Trevor Stakes ahead of entering the Springboard Mile.

Following the big win, the Ashford family followed their colt to the test barn, waited for him to cool out, and then kept eyes on him back at the barn while he got a late dinner. They got home at 1 a.m. so went straight to bed, but they did enjoy a celebratory dinner at Outback Steakhouse the next day.

Ashford admits that while training a horse for the Kentucky Derby has always been a dream of his, it wasn't something he often thought he would achieve.

“You wouldn't do this if it wasn't laying there in the back of your mind, 'The next one could be the good one,'” he said. “I mean, I probably joked around about going to the Derby a few times, but that was before this horse came into the barn.”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: More Derby Dreams Take Root In New Mexico, Iowa appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Trainer Norman L. “Lynn” Cash won his first graded stakes race in the Oct. 29 Kelso (G2) with 42-1 longshot Double Crown, but it is a starter allowance horse who has really put his fledgling stable on the map. 

“I tell people that if I hadn't claimed Beverly Park, nobody would know who I am,” said Cash. “I just happened to grab him at the right time; I didn't pull him forward, he pushed me forward.”

The 5-year-old son of Munnings stands alone atop the North American statistics with 13 victories in 2022; there is a five-way tie for the second position with eight wins apiece. 

More impressive, perhaps, is that Beverly Park has run 28 times this year, and he is entered again on Monday, Dec. 12. No Thoroughbred has run more in 2022; the next highest number of starts is 26, but that horse has just one win on the season.

It's an unusual pattern in the modern era of Thoroughbred racing, to be sure. Then again, at 6'7” in height, his trainer isn't quite the usual backstretch character, either.

“I think we kind of complement each other,” Cash mused. “I think there's a lot of trainers that wouldn't have run him as much, and maybe I ran him too much, but three to four days after a race he can't wait to get back to the track. If you try to hold him back he gets mad; he wants to go. And as far as a healthy horse, he's just completely a tank! We've never had any soundness issues with him.”

Cash grew up in New Mexico with a couple riding horses “that didn't get rode much.” He first remembers becoming a racing fan in the era of the Alydar and Affirmed match-ups, but Cash never considered taking part in the sport until his roofing business brought him and his wife across the Mississippi River to Tennessee. 

“I told my wife, 'Hey, we can go see the Kentucky Derby live!” Cash recalled. “The first time we saw it was Animal Kingdom in 2011, and then the next year it was I'll Have Another.”

Cash and his wife attended all three legs of the Triple Crown in 2012, including the Belmont Stakes after I'll Have Another's scratch the day before the race.

“After the Belmont, I saw in an article that I'll Have Another was bought at auction for $35,000,” said Cash. “I told my wife, 'Hey, we could do that! How fun would that be?'”

Luckily, Cash's wife agreed, and the couple bought their first three Thoroughbreds just a couple weeks later at the OBS June sale of 2-year-olds in training. 

Mal Guapo was the first. A son of Into Mischief, he won two for Cash as owner before being claimed away and going on to win 16 races during his career. (Years later, Cash paid to pull the horse from a horse rescue in Florida and brought him home to his newly-built farm in Midway, Ky.)

Speight's Right (Speightstown), the second purchase, never made it to the races.

Take It Like A Man was the golden ticket from that first group of purchases. A son of Run Away and Hide, the colt won a $400,000 stakes race at Charles Town as a 3-year-old.

“We were kind of hooked from there,” said Cash. “In good years with the roofing company, we would add a couple horses to the stable, and in years that weren't as good, we didn't have the extra money to do that.”

It wasn't always smooth sailing.

“Early on, when I would claim horses, my wife would go and check the bank accounts and I could see the wheels were turning and jaw grinding,” Cash admitted. “I had to explain to her, 'Lola, you gotta think of this as a used car lot. You gotta put cars on the lot, dear; if we got nothing in the barn, we can't make money. We still have the same asset, it's just not liquid right now.' 

“For six months I had to keep reminding her. I don't know if she got tired of hearing the car lot or not, but finally she came around! Then I got smart and bought a filly and named her Lola Flo, for my wife, Lola Florence, and my wife said, 'Let's go get a few more horses.'”

In early 2020, Cash started thinking about making the switch to racing full time and becoming the trainer for his own stable (he and his wife own all the horses themselves under their Build Wright Stables banner). While Cash lacked the hands-on horse experience that would typically preempt such a move, he had found that the backstretch offered plenty of talented horsemen who often lacked business skills.

“I'm creating a business,” he explained. “I've created businesses that have been profitable and successful, and this is a business that just so happens to deal with horses. I probably lack a little bit on the horseman side, but it's getting better all the time. I'm learning every day, but the frontside claiming, the odds, the spotting horses, that's one of my strengths that helps make up for it.

“I'm having the time of my life. I go and run all the time, and it's not like this is a job, even though it's 80-90 hours a week. I still can't believe we're getting paid to do this; the worst day on the track is better than any day on a roof!”

The two horsemen who've made the biggest difference in Cash's business have been his shedrow foreman, Blas Hernandez, and his assistant trainer, Jay Libertini. 

“When I was first in the barn, going back 18-20 months when I was just starting, it took me a few months to get where I was comfortable around the horses,” said Cash. “I remember being intimidated a little bit; I had to go in and get my education also. I saddled and worked like a groom, even though I was the owner/trainer, I wanted to make sure that I was familiar with these things.”

One of the biggest challenges was learning to ride out the wild ups and downs that are inevitable in this sport.

“Sometimes you go through these dry spells when you get beat up by the big barns, just day after day, race after race, and sometimes it wears on you,” he said. “Last September we had a horrible meet at Churchill, and back then we had a lot more emotion. My wife used to tell me she couldn't stand it when we thought the horse would run well and we ended up walking back through that tunnel at Churchill next to the jockey. Now, a year and a half later, maybe we're able to control that emotion a little better.”

Both the excitement of race day and the thrill of the winner's circle have kept Cash and his wife thoroughly enthralled by the sport, and the trainer can't picture himself doing anything else.

“I just love race day,” Cash said. “I remember when we had only 2-3 horses, back years ago when I was just owner, and it was so exciting that after the race I'd almost be a little depressed – win, lose, or draw – because I had to wait so long for the next one. That doesn't happen now; we run a lot. But that's the fun part, and I still get the same thrill. The claiming side is awfully enjoyable too, especially when we claim one who then does well a race or two later.”

Cash's most successful claim is not Beverly Park, even though he's the horse who makes the news most often. That honor goes to Sir Alfred James, a $62,500 claim who has now won over $500,000 under Cash's name. Another son of Munnings, Sir Alfred James has won two stakes races and placed in a graded stakes, and even gave Cash a runner on Kentucky Derby day this year in the G1 Churchill Downs Sprint, in which he finished fourth.

“Some horses you claim and they don't move up, so those tend to be losses, but some have just blossomed and just gone crazy,” said Cash. “Beverly Park is one of those, and so is Sir Alfred James, and that makes up for a whole lot of sins.

“Of course it's cool to hear about the Beverly Parks of the world, but there's also the other side, too. I've had horses that I claimed that I was never able to race, and we've worked hard to help find them new homes. One went to be a foxhunter, and it's so cool to get the pictures of him enjoying his new job.”

It appears Cash is setting up for the long haul: any retirees now have a home at his farm in Midway. Cash has nine fillies and mares on the farm to become broodmares, and he also has two retired geldings he utilizes as babysitters.

“I tell everybody I'm going to die in that home, in this business,” Cash said. “You couldn't get me out with a crowbar! Even when I'm not at the races or the barn, I'm still pulling up things on my phone, looking at horses that are in over the next few days, or somebody will call and we're going back in. It's very consuming, and for a while it pushed everything out and it was just racing, but now I've got a little bit more of a balance with other important things in life.”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Cash’s Commitment To Racing Is Through The Roof appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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There's something to be said for a person who can not only recognize when they are making poor choices, but who can also step up and make the necessary changes to get back on track.

Especially when that person goes it alone.

Trainer Jeff Hiles' brighter path continues to pay dividends as he celebrated a win for the second year in a row in the $108,433 Claiming Crown Iron Horse Starter Stakes. This year, it was the $8,000 claim Time For Trouble who delivered a 3 ¼-length victory in the 1 1/16-mile contest.

The Churchill Downs winner's circle is a far cry from where Hiles found himself after returning from a five-year stint with the Marine Corps. He isn't proud of the decisions he made during the ensuing years, and at age 35 he found himself in a rut both personally and professionally.

“I was full of bad decisions when I got home,” Hiles said. “But I felt that I was capable of achieving so much more. I just started taking small steps, and I decided I wanted to follow my dreams of becoming a horse trainer like my father.”

That's Rick Hiles, veteran trainer of over 650 winners and longtime president of the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association. 

Jeff Hiles certainly inherited his father's passion for the horses, and he recalls many late nights at the barn when he was a teenager.

“Once you get involved with them, it just becomes a part of you,” Hiles said. “I was kind of a troubled teen, so at night I would go out to the barn there at Churchill and just sit in the barn there with the horses. It was relaxing for my anxiety; they've always been kind of a relief for me.”

With that new goal and his equine passion at the front of his mind, Hiles moved back to Kentucky and took a job at a car dealership in Lexington. Though he made good money, it was a call from trainer Kenny McPeek that allowed Hiles to quickly transition back to the racetrack.

“All the horses were coming in from Florida, so I quit my job and started making almost nothing as a hotwalker,” said Hiles. “I thought I needed to work my way through the ranks. I worked my tail off to begin my career with Kenny. I sort of did anything we needed around the barn – clean stalls, groom, push feed carts and hot walk. If you want something bad enough, you'll do anything.”

The hardest part wasn't the work; it was overcoming the lack of support as he made the transition.

“Everybody told me to do the opposite of what I was doing – I can't think of one person who said, 'Follow your dreams,'” Hiles recalled. “But I think you can achieve anything you want as long as you work hard. If you have dreams, you have to take a chance and follow them because if you don't, one day you're going to regret it. I don't want to lay on my deathbed and think, 'I wish I had done this.'

“Horse racing is a lot of work but well worth it in the long run. I love this sport and my country. I'm glad I was able to serve in the Marines, then return to the industry I love.”

Hiles progressed quickly, moving up to the position as McPeek's Churchill Downs-based assistant trainer. 

After a few years, Hiles' best friend Mickey Bailew started encouraging him to go out on his own. 

“He's 25 years older than I am, but he's my best friend,” Hiles said. “He really pushed me, and he claimed my first horse for me in 2018 with Silver Time Racing. Honestly, I struggled my ass off for the first 2 1/2 years. I hauled horses on the side so that I could keep supporting my family.

“Mickey helped me a lot, and I never gave up. I don't know what it is. I just felt like this was what I was meant to do.”

Bailew passed away in 2020, just before Hiles' career started to take off.

“I know he'd be proud of me,” Hiles said. 

It was in the spring of 2021 that Hiles was hired by former trainer Billy Denzik, now the racing manager for Louisville, Ky., businessman Brook Smith's Rocket Ship Racing. 

“I don't know if the universe shifted or what,” Hiles quipped. “I travel with all my horses, and I haul them myself. I've run at a bunch of different places and I'm always there, so a lot of the clients that I've picked up, and my big client, Brook Smith, they noticed that. You know, attention to details. It's just worked out. Everything has worked out for me. Been lucky.”

Hiles improved his record from seven wins in 2020 to 15 wins in 2021, and this year the 42-year-old trainer has won 20 races and is closing in on $1 million in earnings.

His Claiming Crown winner, Time For Trouble, who Hiles owns in partnership with Paul Parker, is responsible for four of those wins in 2022.

The 5-year-old son of English Channel was an $8,000 claim at Churchill Downs on June 18, 2021. 

“When I saw him I didn't think much of him; he's little bitty,” Hiles said. “The biggest thing with claiming one, though, is getting one that's sound. You'd think with big horses, they would go further, but it's actually the opposite. I'm 6'4”, and when I used to run in the Marines I got passed all the time by the little guys! 

“It's because it takes me so much more energy to complete a stride than it does someone smaller; the same is true in horses.”

Time For Trouble hadn't run in especially long races over his career up to that point, and Hiles believed both his breeding and size would be beneficial for those longer spots.

The gelding won at first asking in a starter allowance at Belterra Park, then rebounded with a big second-place finish in a 1 ½-mile starter allowance at the lucrative Kentucky Downs meet. Time For Trouble ran poorly in his next start, so Hiles gave him the winter off and didn't run the gelding again until July of 2022.

That patience was rewarded with a three-race win streak: two starter allowances at Belterra and one at Kentucky Downs were added to the gelding's resume. In his final prep for the Claiming Crown, Time For Trouble ran second in a starter allowance at Keeneland.

Walking into the Churchill paddock with Time For Trouble on Claiming Crown day, Nov. 12, Hiles was confident.

“I thought he had as good a shot as anybody else,” Hiles said. “I was a little concerned about the distance (1 1/16 miles), that it might be too short. We were gonna enter him in the grass race (Emerald, 1 1/16 miles on turf), but fortunately we didn't because it came off the grass anyway (due to wet conditions). He's got a small foot and so I thought he'd handle the mud.”

Entering the winner's circle, Hiles quietly took the victory in stride.

“It felt like we made the right move and it paid off,” he said. “It's good to win a race at any track, and it was exciting for me because I won the race last year with Blue Steel. “All the guys were excited, and Paul's kids were excited, so I was more happy for them than I was for myself. I just felt like I did my job.”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘If You Have Dreams, You Have To Take A Chance And Follow Them’ appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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This Thanksgiving, I want to bring you an inspirational story that's a little bit different from this feature's usual fare.

It's a story about perseverance, about the power of perspective, and above all, about the generosity of the horse racing community.

Bryce Bordieu is a 19-year-old horseman who had been plying his trade in Texas, galloping horses at a local training center in the mornings and working as an assistant starter at Retama Park in the afternoons. On Aug. 11, 2022, Bordieu's life changed forever when a filly he was riding flipped over and fell on top of him.

He suffered severe injuries to his spine which required multiple surgeries to stabilize, but the biggest trauma came later when Bordieu developed compartment syndrome in his left leg. Every attempt was made to save the limb, but after 13 surgeries doctors were eventually forced to amputate his leg below the knee.

Bordieu could have let that sudden loss devastate him; it wasn't just his lower left leg that was gone, but his entire career path and way of life were now permanently changed.

Instead, the wise-beyond-his-years young man never allowed his courageous mindset to falter. Bordieu never lost hope, and remains determined to rehabilitate his body and return to the saddle and the industry he loves.

“He never once said, 'Why me?'” recalled Bordieu's mother, Julie Farr. “His attitude has inspired everyone who meets him… Even though it was horrific, I felt like I was really watching something special as he went through this.”

Bordieu said: “I just told myself to keep fighting, keep going. Everything was going on around me, and I just put my head down and kept going.”

He suggested that it was his mother's influence, sleeping on a bench outside his hospital room for 10 weeks, that helped Bordieu keep such a positive attitude throughout the ordeal.

“I was a single mom raising him and his brother, but he's always been that way,” Farr deferred. “He blew out his left knee playing football in 2018 and was strong through that, too. There's a determination there, and I can honestly tell you he's the strongest human being I've ever met in my life. There's a focus and a determination there that he just has. I'd like to think that my being there probably helped him, but I can't take credit for it.”

Beyond Bordieu's strength of character, the camaraderie of the horse racing industry has been a buoyant force during his recovery.

“We have been so humbled by the outpouring of support from so many,” Farr said. “When I say that, people automatically think of money, and that's great because we can use it to pay bills. But I really want to make this profound statement: it's the prayers and the statements and the cards and the messages on Facebook, those mean everything. It is truly humbling what this racing community has done for him. The racing community are such fierce competitors on the racetrack, but they are a true family off the track.”

Farr works as a racing analyst and a racing administrator in New Mexico, and was at Ruidoso Downs when she got the call that her son had been seriously injured. The remote racetrack would have made it difficult for her to make it to Texas very quickly, but horse owner Scott Bryant sent his private jet to the runway at Ruidoso and got her to her son's bedside just a couple hours later.

“He paid for it and everything,” Farr said. “It was like that through this whole thing. There would be these moments where you would just look at it and think, 'Dear God, what next?' But then something beautiful would happen. It kept us going.”

Retama Park chaplain Michael Bingaman traveled up to the hospital twice a week to spend time with Bordieu, helping to keep his spirits up. Jockeys Mike Smith, Pat Day, Gary Stevens, and James Flores, as well as rodeo community members Tuff Hedeman and J.B. Mauney, have all reached out to Bordieu and offered well-wishes and support.

Janet VanBebber, chief racing officer with the American Quarter Horse Association, purchased jockey Flores' 2022 All-American Futurity-winning helmet to help benefit Bordieu's recovery at an auction held at Heritage Place sale in September.

Brad Bolen (LipChipLLC) organized a fundraiser and prayer that was a surprise for Bordieu on Labor Day weekend. Eric Halstrom and Rachel McLaughlin from Horseshoe Indianapolis held a fundraiser at their venue. Laura Joiner from the Sam Thompson Memorial Foundation spent countless hours taking care of fundraising, as well.

(https://samthompsonfoundation.org/2022/09/bryce-bourdieu-in-need-of-support/)

“The racing industry has been so incredibly supportive and encouraging during this unfortunate tragedy,” Farr summarized. “We are incredibly humbled by this experience.”

A little over three months after the accident, Bordieu is already back home in El Paso and working hard on his outpatient rehab. He is awaiting one more revision surgery in three to six months, after which he'll be able to begin learning to use a prosthesis.

Bordieu's physical therapist is optimistic that he'll be able to ride again, Farr said.

“There's so many different combinations of legs that you can put together,” she explained. “They told us the last 30 years, especially the last 10 years, that in this side of medicine there has just been so much development; every day they're coming up with something new. They've made great strides in it.”

Bordieu said: “I told the therapist the other day: 'I don't really care if I can't walk. I just want to ride racehorses.'”

With his positive attitude, a little perseverance, and a lot of help from his horse racing family, Bordieu will have all the ingredients he needs to make that dream a reality.

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘I Don’t Really Care If I Can’t Walk. I Just Want To Ride Racehorses’ appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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