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Essential Quality Holds Off Keepmeinmind For Jim Dandy Win

In a hard-fought battle to the wire, Essential Quality, the 2-5 favorite, prevailed by a half-length over a tenacious Keepmeinmind to win Saturday's nine-furlong, $600,000 Grade 2 Jim Dandy for 3-year-olds at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

The Godolphin homebred's victory in the 58th running of the Jim Dandy stamped him as the favorite for Saratoga's signature race, the $1.25 million Grade 1 Runhappy Travers on August 28. In June, the handsome gray son of Tapit was the decisive winner of the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes presented by NYRA Bets.

Essential Quality, who has been piloted by Luis Saez in seven of his eight career starts, defeated four rivals after the scratch of Risk Taking.

Dr Jack broke sharp from his rail post and was followed by Masqueparade, Weyburn, and Keepmeinmind. Saez had Essential Quality in the clear on the outside in fifth, not far off the leaders. Following sharp fractions of :23.81, :47.41, and 1:11.13 on the fast main track, the pacesetter was retreating while Masqueparade and Weyburn were taking up prominent positions as the field turned for home.

But Essential Quality, with a sweeping outside move, bore down on those rivals, while Keepmeinmind, whose sire Laoban won the 2016 Jim Dandy, was snaking his way up on the rail. It then became a race down to the finish line between those two, with Essential Quality pulling clear in the shadow of the wire, stopping the clock in 1:49.92.

It was a nail-biter for Essential Quality's trainer, Brad Cox.

“When they straightened up, I thought, 'Wow we've been wide both turns,' and then we see a horse slip up the inside [No. 4, Keepmeinmind] who looked like he had some run left,” Cox said. “It made for some anxious moments down the lane. Overall, he's a very determined horse. He has the heart of a champion. He's a good horse, he stays on.

“There was a lot of ground lost today,” Cox added. “Luis obviously had to work to win. He got something out of it, I do think that. I think he's carrying a little more weight now than he was leading up to the Derby or Belmont. I think this was a good tightener for him, four weeks out [from the Travers].”

The win marked a second straight and third overall Jim Dandy win for Godolphin, whose royal blue colors scored last year with Mystic Guide as well as with Alpha in 2012. The last time a Jim Dandy winner connected with a victory in the Travers was 2012 when Alpha finished in a dead-heat for the win with Golden Ticket.

Jimmy Bell, president of Godolphin operations in the United States, said, “The really good horses just show up and find a way to get things done and he has seemed to do that every start. Consistency has been his hallmark and it was a battle down the stretch. It was probably good for him, which is easier to say after the race than when they're at the sixteenth pole.”

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For his part, Saez said, he felt confident he was sitting aboard the winner.

“I saw him [No. 4, Keepmeinmind], but I had a lot of horse and I knew he was going to finish,” the meet's leading rider said. “The plan today was not to take too much away from him. He always fights and he always wants to win.”

Essential Quality returned $2.80 for a $2 win wager. Find this race's chart here.

Masqueparade finished third, 2 1/4 lengths behind Keepmeinmind, and was followed under the wire by Weyburn and Dr Jack.

The win elevated Essential Quality's earnings to $3,545,144 and brought last year's 2-year-old champion's record to 7-0-0 from eight starts. His lone career loss came in the Kentucky Derby when he crossed the wire in fourth place.

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Essential Quality To Face Five Rivals In Saturday’s Jim Dandy

The top contenders in the 3-year-old division usually sojourn to Saratoga Race Course in August for the Travers. But top-caliber sophomores will be competing at the historic racetrack in July, with Saturday's Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy attracting a talented six-horse field headlined by Belmont Stakes-winner Essential Quality.

The 58th running of the Jim Dandy, contested at 1 1/8 miles, is slated as Race 9 and is one of three graded stakes on Saturday's 11-race card, joining the Grade 1, $350,000 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap for 3-year-olds and up sprinting six furlongs in Race 8 and the Grade 2, $250,000 Bowling Green for 4-year-olds and up going 1 3/8 miles on the inner turf in Race 10.

The Jim Dandy, a prep race for the Grade 1, $1.25 million Runhappy Travers at 1 1/4 miles on August 28, will mark the Saratoga debut of Godolphin's Essential Quality. The reigning Champion 2-Year-Old for trainer Brad Cox has already proved he was more than a talented juvenile, starting his sophomore campaign with wins in the Grade 3 Southwest and Grade 2 Blue Grass while on the Kentucky Derby trail this spring.

Following a competitive fourth in the “Run for the Roses” on May 1 in which he earned his first triple-digit Beyer Speed Figure, Essential Quality outdueled Hot Rod Charlie to post a 1 1/4-length victory in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes presented by NYRA Bets on June 5 at the Triple Crown race's famed 1 1/2-mile distance. The Tapit colt earned Cox his first career win in an American Classic and has registered three works at Saratoga since shipping from Churchill earlier this month.

“He likes it up here big time,” Cox said. “We take him out in the afternoons when it's not raining and let him graze. He's a lawnmower. He's real focused here. He's doing well.”

Essential Quality earned a 109 Beyer for his Belmont win and has posted six wins in seven career starts, with five of those victories in graded stakes, encompassing three winner's circle trips in Grade 1s after winning the Breeders' Futurity in his second career start in October at Keeneland before winning the Breeders' Cup Juvenile over the same track in November to close out his 2020 award-winning campaign.

“I'm very anxious to see him race again just for the simple fact of how he's training and how he's filling out,” Cox said. “He's a very intelligent horse. He's been wanting to do more. He came out of last work great. He's been very sharp and his energy has been great. The cooler weather is playing a role in that. But he's ready to run. I'm very excited.”

Jockey Luis Saez, aboard for all six of Essential Quality's stakes races, will have the return call from post 5.

Chiefswood Stables' Weyburn, a resurgent winner of the Grade 3 Gotham going a one-turn mile in March at Aqueduct Racetrack, will be making his first start since running a game second to Kentucky Derby runner-up Mandaloun by a neck in the 1 1/16-mile Pegasus on June 13 at Monmouth Park.

The Jimmy Jerkens trainee's lone off-the-board finish in five starts since his debut in October was a fourth-place effort in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial presented by Resorts World Casino in April going the Jim Dandy distance at the Big A.

Weyburn has worked three times at Saratoga this month since shipping from Belmont and will look to again show a competitiveness that has seen him demonstrate marked tenacity in the stretch run.

“He's a big dude; big and long,” Jerkens said. “He's a massive horse. When they come back fighting like that, that's what you want.”

After stepping up to two turns the last two races, Jerkens said Weyburn is learning how to navigate the longer distances.

“He still acts like he's a little confused by two-turn racing,” Jerkens said. “He breaks on his own and then gets on the bridle and then he was a little keen down the backside [in the Pegasus]. The pacesetter [Lugamo] stopped abruptly and he ended up on the lead by himself, and he looked like he spit the bit out a little bit Mandaloun made a big, sweeping move past him and then he went after him again. He did that in the Gotham, when he lost the lead, he came back on. I guess it's like a little game with him.

“I think the last race did him a lot of good,” Jerkens added. “His only two-turn race before that was the Wood Memorial and there was a big gap from that race. He should get better with more seasoning.”

Irad Ortiz, Jr., the defending three-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey, will ride Weyburn for the first time, drawing post 3.

“Irad is going to have to figure it out. He's got enough natural speed to where you can pretty much put him wherever you want,” Jerkens said. “I just hope instead of running spotty like that, l just hope he runs a little more even all the way and still has it for the end.”

Harrell Ventures' Dr Jack was third in his stakes debut in the Pegasus and will now step up to graded stakes company for the first time. Dr Jack's conditioner is Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher, who has won the Jim Dandy six times, with his last victory with Palace Malice in 2013.

Dr Jack won his debut going 6 1/2 furlongs in April at Gulfstream Park and handled a stretch out to 1 1/16 miles by posting a three-length victory on May 14 at Pimlico. After competing in the Pegasus last month, the son of Pioneerof the Nile will again face talented competition, drawing post 1 with Jose Ortiz aboard.

“He's lightly raced, but he was able to break his maiden first time out and step up into an allowance,” Pletcher said. “I thought he ran a respectable race in the Pegasus and certainly Mandaloun coming back to win the Haskell makes that look to be a good race. It looks like a very competitive field, but not a large field, so we'll take a shot.”

Pletcher said Dr Jack, after facing a string of more seasoned horses, is looking to continue the improvement he's shown throughout his first three starts.

“For his third start and his first try in a stakes, to be beaten a little more than two lengths to a horse like Mandaloun, who has been through a good series of Derby preps, it was a tall ask and he ran credibly,” Pletcher said.

FTGGG Racing's Masqueparade handled the step up to stakes company with aplomb last out, posting a half-length win in the Grade 3 Ohio Derby going 1 1/8 miles at Thistledown on June 26. The Upstart colt has improved his speed figures in four consecutive starts, going from a 74 for a third-place maiden finish in February at Fair Grounds to a 98 for his last-out graded win.

Trainer Al Stall, Jr. said Masqueparade earned an opportunity to compete against the division's upper echelon.

“Our horse is on the upswing, so if he keeps improving, he could be there or thereabouts. He deserves a shot,” Stall said. “His last two races have been very good and he handled graded competition. The numbers are fine but stepping up to those proven competitors is more a test to me than running against the clock. I think he deserves a chance.”

Miguel Mena will ride from post 2.

Klaravich Stables' Risk Taking will be running for the first time since an eighth-place finish in the Grade 1 Preakness on May 15. After starting his sophomore campaign with a 3 3/4-length win in the Grade 3 Gotham in March at Aqueduct, Risk Taking will be competing at Saratoga for the first time.

Risk Taking, trained by four-time Eclipse Award-winner Chad Brown, ran a dull seventh in the Wood Memorial before the off-the-board Preakness effort in a 10-horse field. The Medaglia d'Oro colt has won twice in three starts at the Jim Dandy distance and will look to use that to his advantage with Manny Franco set to ride out of post 6.

Keepmeinmind competed in the first two legs of the Triple Crown, running seventh in the Kentucky Derby and fourth in the Preakness, before garnering a 97 Beyer for a third-place finish in the Ohio Derby. Owned by Cypress Creek Equine, Arnold Bennewith and Spendthrift Farm, the Laoban colt earned black type in two Grade 1s as a 2-year-old, running second in the Breeders' Futurity and third, two lengths back to Essential Quality, in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile for trainer Robertino Diodoro.

Joel Rosario will be in the irons from post 4.

Saratoga Live will present daily television coverage of the 40-day summer meet on FOX Sports. For the complete Saratoga Live broadcast schedule, and additional programming information, visit https://www.nyra.com/saratoga/racing/tv-schedule.

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Bloodlines Presented By Mill Ridge Farm: Idol Was A Milestone Winner For Top Sire Curlin

Leading sire Curlin (by Smart Strike) picked up another first-time stakes winner over the weekend, and the victory came in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap. Idol was making his sixth start, and the Santa Anita Handicap came as the bay colt's third success from six starts, with two seconds and a third, for earnings of $416,464.

The 75th stakes winner by Curlin, Idol was bred in Kentucky by My Meadowview LLC and sold as a yearling for $375,000 at the 2018 Keeneland September yearling sale.

Lincoln Collins, the bloodstock adviser for My Meadowview, said that “Idol was always a strong, good-looking young horse who looked like he would mature into a colt who would thrive at 10 furlongs, and we had great hopes for him.”

The big bay did not immediately, however, prove out those high hopes for his success.

Unraced at two, Idol made his debut last year at Churchill Downs on Sept. 5 as a 3-year-old and finished second going six furlongs. The colt moved up to seven furlongs for his second start, on Sept. 26 at Churchill, and with the help of a swift early pace, he mowed down the opposition to win by 2 1/2 lengths in 1:22.04.

An allowance victory on Nov. 8 at 9.5 furlongs brought a new Churchill Downs track record of 1:55.95 as Idol won off by 5 3/4 lengths as the odds-on favorite at .50-to-1. The colt's three subsequent starts have all been in graded stakes at Santa Anita: the G2 San Antonio (second), G2 San Pasqual (third), and the Santa Anita Handicap.

Not only has Curlin made his name as a sire by producing high-quality performers at more than a mile but also having stock that stay sound and succeed as they mature. Idol has clearly followed the memo.

Collins said, “One of the challenges of breeding a horse like this is that one is treading a fine line between a horse that stays and a horse that is slow. And especially here in the States, a horse that stays has to be very high class; otherwise there's no place for him to race.”

By a two-time Horse of the Year, Idol is the third foal out of the listed stakes winner Marion Ravenwood (A.P. Indy), and he is the mare's first stakes winner, although her second foal, the Midnight Lute colt Ark in the Dark, has current earnings of $193,023.

The mare has an unraced 3-year-old colt by Pioneerof the Nile named Dr Jack. He sold for $250,000 at the 2018 Keeneland November sale as a weanling, then resold as a 2-year-old in training at the OBS spring sale last year (April sale in June) for $170,000.

Marion Ravenwood herself sold for $400,000 at the 2017 Keeneland November auction when Idol was a weanling. The mare was in foal to Pioneerof the Nile with Dr Jack at the time. In addition to the colt above, the mare's 2019 filly was a full sister to Idol who sold for $350,000 at the 2020 Keeneland September sale.

Last year, Marion Ravenwood produced a colt by Violence and she was bred to City of Light for 2021.

Although Idol missed out on the classics, he comes from a family with a grand classic tradition. The colt traces in the female line to Boudoir, a daughter of English Derby winner Mahmoud. Her most important foals were Your Host (Alibhai, by English Derby winner Hyperion, by wartime English Triple Crown winner Gainsborough). Your Host became the sire of five-time Horse of the Year Kelso, and Your Host's full sister Your Hostess was stakes-placed and became a famous broodmare.

Your Hostess produced four stakes winners, including T.V. Commercial (T.V. Lark), who won 15 of 55 races, including the Arlington-Washington Futurity and the Breeders' Futurity; Gallatia (Gallant Man), who won the Schuylerville Stakes at Saratoga; and Corragioso (Gallant Man), who won the Alcibiades and five other stakes.

More importantly for our story was the fourth foal of Your Hostess: Gay Hostess (Royal Charger). This striking mare produced Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Majestic Prince (Raise a Native), as well as the English highweight juvenile colt Crowned Prince, also by Raise a Native. Their full sister Meadow Blue was the last foal out of Your Hostess and was not raced.

At stud, Meadow Blue produced a stakes winner and a pair of stakes-placed racers. All five of her daughters produced stakes winners. The most immediately important was the Believe It mare Really Blue, who became the dam of champion Real Quiet (Quiet American), winner of the 1998 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, 1997 Hollywood Futurity, and the 1999 Pimlico Special and Hollywood Gold Cup.

Meadow Blue's stakes-winning daughter Nureyev's Best (Nureyev) is the third dam of Idol. Her best foal was the G2 stakes winner Andujar (Quiet American), who won the Milady, was third in the G1 Vanity at Hollywood Park and in the G1 Go for Wand at Saratoga. Andujar is the second dam of Idol, and her two stakes winners are Marion Ravenwood (A.P. Indy), dam of the Idol, and Abstraction, by A.P. Indy's high-class son Pulpit and a winner of the Federico Tesio Stakes.

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