Wednesday’s Insights: Debut Winners Rocketeer and More Vino Return

7th-KEE, $110K, $100k Opt. Clm., 3yo, 1 1/16m, 4:12 p.m.
e Five Thoroughbreds and Ian Brennan's ROCKETEER (Curlin) lived up to his name when airing by four lengths in his career debut going seven panels at this venue last October. Working consistently for trainer Brad Cox, the colt posted a bullet five-furlong move in :59 4/5 at Churchill Downs Mar. 31 before going four furlongs in :48 4/5 Apr. 6. A grandson of Grade I winner Stop Traffic (Cure the Blues), the colt takes blinkers off for this go around. Tyler Gaffalione gets the mount. Repole Stable and St Elias Stable team up with More Vino (Vino Rosso), a $400,000 Keeneland September purchase. Trained by Todd Pletcher, the colt marked his debut with a 1 1/2-length score going 1 mile 40 yards at Tampa Mar. 10. Irad Ortiz Jr. joins the fray here. TJCIS PPs

 

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Hall of Fame Stakes Part of Big Weekend at the Spa for Bob Edwards

For a man who has been in the racing business for just eight years, Bob Edwards has already enjoyed all the highs one could imagine in the sport; he has won Breeders' Cup races, campaigned champions, and–turning his attention to breeding–he has sold a million-dollar yearling at the boutique Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale. All of those successes will coalesce in the next five days in upstate New York.

At the racetrack Friday, three graduates of Edwards's Fifth Avenue Bloodstock breeding operation will be go postward in the GII National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame S. Across the street five days later, he will send three yearlings through the ring at the Saratoga sale.

In the Hall of Fame, Bat Flip, a son of Edwards's champion Good Magic, looks for his third straight win in his first start since last November. The colt was sold for $350,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale.

General Jim (Into Mischief), an $850,000 Keeneland September yearling and already winner of the GII Pat Day Mile, returns to the turf following a well-beaten effort in the GI Woody Stephens S.

Of the trio, homebred Carl Spackler (Ire) (Lope de Vega {Ire}) is the only one of the group who will be carrying the colors of Edwards's e Five Racing Thoroughbreds.

“It's pretty impressive, isn't it,” Edwards said of the trio. “It's one thing when you are first starting out and people want to know why somebody who races is selling horses. Obviously, we are selling good horses because we have three in a stakes race. But the breeding pays bills.”

The three graded starters reflect the solid foundation Edwards created along with bloodstock advisor Mike Ryan when he first started buying horses in 2015.

“Mike Ryan picked me out really nice pedigrees,” Edwards said. “So if they didn't run, the idea was always to breed them. That was always Plan B. If they weren't fast horses, they would be great moms. As I had fillies come off the track and turn into mares and then broodmares, we want to keep those bloodlines.”

Edwards points to Krazy Kathy (Harlan's Holiday), the dam of Bat Flip, as a perfect example. The mare, who RNA'd for $345,000 at the 2015 Keeneland September sale, raced 10 times in the e Five colors and earned just over $40,000.

“Krazy Kathy is a horse that I ran up here in Saratoga,” Edwards said. “She didn't do well. She was a serviceable horse, but she's turned out to be a great mare. She has unbelievable babies on the ground. I think I am going to keep one this year out of her and then the one we just had, we will figure out what we will do with that one when it comes around the corner.”

Carl Spackler, a dominant maiden winner at Gulfstream in February, will be looking to rebound from a tough-luck trip as the favorite in the May 6 GII American Turf S. last time out. The chestnut is out of Zindaya (More Than Ready), a mare who holds a special spot in Edwards's heart.

“Zindaya was my first winner, my first win was the Intercontinental at Belmont,” Edwards said. “I sold the first two babies out of her and Sheikh Mohammed bought them both. I switched back between Frankel (GB) and Lopa de Vega. I brought her home this year and sent her to Uncle Mo to change things up.”

Asked how he would like to see the one-mile race develop, Edwards said, “I hope it stays dry. And I hope Tyler Gaffalione comes out of the gate and controls the pace and gets us home with a win with Bat Flip and General Jim right behind him.”

Win, lose or draw, Edwards will move on to the sales arena next week when he offers three horses through the Indian Creek consignment at the Saratoga sale.

“I went at looked at them yesterday and I think these are the three nicest horses I've ever bred,” Edwards said.

Leading off the trio is hip 128, a filly by Good Magic out of Pinch of Grace (GB) (Pivotal).

“She is by Good Magic out of a Pivotal mare, which is kind of an odd cross,” Edwards said of the yearling. “But the Pivotal mare had a lot of leg and it added a lot of leg to this Good Magic and it's one of the nicest Good Magics I've bred.”

Hip 154 is a colt by Into Mischief out of graded stakes winner Seek and Destroy (Verrazano), a half-sister to multiple graded winner Tammy the Torpedo (More Than Ready).

“Seek and Destroy was probably the best Verrazano and she's out of that same family of Search and Seizure (War Chant), which was Tammy Torpedo,” Edwards said. “It's a really strong family. I had a War Front out of her [at the Saratoga sale] last year. I own half of him with Sheikh Fahad with Joseph O'Brien. He's another gorgeous horse.”

Rounding out the group is hip 230, a daughter of Speightstown out of the unraced Antilla (Bernardini). The yearling is from the family of Grade I winner Wickedly Perfect.

“Hip 230 may be my favorite,” Edwards admitted. “I know the Good Magic is everybody's favorite so far, but she's a Speightstown filly out of a Bernardini mare and she's an absolutely stunning horse. She checks all of the boxes for me as a buyer. She wasn't a great race mare, but with the Bernardini bloodlines–they make good moms that was part of the whole package.”

The decision on what to potentially keep and what to sell starts early on with mating discussions, according to Edwards.

“We sit down around the table and talk and figure out how we want to breed the horse,” Edwards said. “What's sexy for us. What is commercial. And we kind of go from there. I will breed to race, knowing I am going to keep the horse. And then I will breed commercial, hoping I sell the horses. Sometimes, it doesn't work out either way. The commercial horse is too nice to sell or something is up on the radiograph and I keep it. Sometimes the breed-to-race is the same way. It's really nice, it's a perfect horse, it might be an opportunity to take some money off the table.”

The Fifth Avenue Bloodstock broodmare band currently has about 25 members, including multiple Grade I winner New Money Honey (Medaglia d'Oro), who has an Into Mischief yearling colt and a weanling colt by War Front.

“I have kept five yearlings that I bred for myself, one of them is an Into Mischief out of New Money Honey,” Edwards said. “It's a really nice horse, a really nice cross and that horse checks all of the boxes, with an A+ airway, super correct body, really nice-looking conformation. He could have brought a lot of money here, but that's what I am keeping. You kind of pick and choose. I am not a big colt purchaser. We buy a lot more fillies than we do colts. We partner up on colts, so to have a homebred colt is something special for us.”

Fifth Avenue Bloodstock had its first seven-figure sale when a daughter of Veracity sold for $1 million at the 2018 Saratoga sale. The operation sold another daughter out of the mare for $900,000 at Saratoga the following year.

Despite the sales success, it's obvious that Edwards's true passion is in racing.

“The money is awesome and it's a lot of fun to sell a horse like that,” he said. “But then I've got to wait a year or a year and a half win for somebody else to win with him–which is equally exciting. But this weekend, my wife's family is all in town. We have two runners this weekend. We are doing a memorial race for my wife's aunt on Saturday, which is really special for us as a family. So, it's a big weekend for us. I would love to see Carl Spackler take it home.”

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Collected’s Kalik Wires Pennine Ridge

Robert LaPenta, e Five Thoroughbred Racing and Madaket Stables' Kalik (Collected) took control of Saturday's GII Pennine Ridge S. in the first sixteenth of a mile, was beautifully rated from the front by Irad Ortiz, Jr. and had enough in the tank to hold off 'TDN Rising Star' Far Bridge (English Channel) and Godolphin's Silver Knott (GB) (Lope de Vega {Ire}) in the stepping-stone to the GI Belmont Derby in five weeks' time. In so doing, he was becoming the second graded stakes winner in the space of 15 days for his Airdrie Stud-based sire (by City Zip) after Taxed caused an 11-1 surprise in the GII George E. Mitchell Black-Eyed Susan S. on Preakness weekend.

“On paper, he [Kalik] was lone speed,” said trainer Chad Brown, winning the race for the third time. “He's a class horse with a lot of quality to him. We thought on paper that if he could get out there and control the race, he would at least have a final say.”

Sometimes things go exactly according to script. Kalik won the break and headed off his rivals prior to the first corner, covering the opening couple of furlongs in :24.69 and the half in a hassle-free and the half in an equally comfortable :49.17. Going along nicely within himself on the second turn, Kalik kicked over onto his right lead with about a furlong and a half to race and proved not for catching. Far Bridge was under heavy urging three furlongs out and at one point was more or less the back marker, but jumped back into the bridle and weaved his way through to just beat Silver Knott out of second.

Well-beaten on his main-track debut at Aqueduct in September, Kalik perked up with a runner-up effort going two turns on the grass down the Cross Island Oct. 23 and headed south for the winter. The $80,000 FTKNOV weanling turned $200,000 KEESEP yearling validated even-money support on his return St. Patrick's Day at Gulfstream and made it two straight with an all-the-way allowance score over a mile and sixteenth of this course May 7.

“The horse really just blossomed over the winter,” Brown continued. “He put a bunch of weight on and he matured. He was like an immature teenager last year. He always trained well, but he was just a stick figure kind of horse. Now he's filled out and turned into a real man.”

While the July 8 Belmont Derby is an obvious near-team objective, Ontario-bred Kalik could pay a visit to the Great White North over the coming months.

“In the summertime, if he stays healthy, I'm really interested in the [Aug. 20 C$1-million] King's Plate,” Brown said. “It's a race we've never won and it's an interesting idea for this horse down the road.”

Pedigree Notes:

Kalik's dam is a daughter of the talented multiple graded winner Sara Louise, whose Grade III-winning half-sister Just Louise (Five Star Day) produced two-time GSW and GISP Forbidden Kingdom (American Pharoah). After foaling a Hard Spun filly in 2022, Coronation Street was offered pregnant to Collected at last summer's Fasig-Tipton Selected Horses of All Ages Sale, but was bought back when bidding stalled out at $11,000. She produced a full-sister to Kalik this past Mar. 25.

Kalik and Taxed are the bookends of a seriously productive couple of weeks for Collected. Two days after the Black-Eyed Susan, Conclude took the Desert Code S. on the downhill turf course at Santa Anita, while Playground Legend won her maiden at Monmouth May 28 and Royal Velvet and second-crop colt Gewurztraminer graduated at Pimlico and Churchill, respectively, on May 29. Collected was also represented by his first Japanese winner when the Shadai-bred Collectanea broke through Saturday at Tokyo.

Saturday, Belmont
PENNINE RIDGE S.-GII, $200,000, Belmont, 6-3, 3yo, 1 1/8mT, 1:47.85, fm.
1–KALIK, 118, c, 3, by Collected
1st Dam: Coronation Street, by Street Cry (Ire)
2nd Dam: Sara Louise, by Malibu Moon
3rd Dam: Kings Lynn, by Mt. Livermore
1ST BLACK TYPE WIN, 1ST GRADED STAKES WIN. ($80,000
Wlg '20 FTKNOV; $200,000 Ylg '21 KEESEP). O-Robert V.
LaPenta, e Five Racing Thoroughbreds and Madaket Stables
LLC; B-Peter A. Berglar Racing Interests, LLC & Anderson Farms
(Ontario) (ON); T-Chad C. Brown; J-Irad Ortiz, Jr. $110,000.
Lifetime Record: 5-3-1-0, $224,675. *1/2 to Bringer of Rain
(Twirling Candy), GSP, $116,910. Werk Nick Rating: A.
Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree.
Click for the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Far Bridge, 118, c, 3, English Channel–Fitpitcher, by Kitten's
Joy. 'TDN Rising Star'. O-LSU Stables; B-Calumet Farm (KY);
T-Todd A. Pletcher. $40,000.
3–Silver Knott (GB), 120, c, 3, Lope de Vega (Ire)–God Given
(GB), by Nathaniel (Ire). (725,000gns Ylg '21 TATOCT).
O-Godolphin, LLC; B-St Albans Bloodstock LLP (GB); T-Charles
Appleby. $24,000.
Margins: 1, HD, 2. Odds: 2.95, 1.75, 1.55.
Also Ran: Lachaise, Freedom Trail, Congruent, Belouni (Fr). Scratched: Sharar.
Click for the Equibase.com chart and the TJCIS.com PPs. VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.

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Gibberish Decisive In Turnback The Alarm At Belmont

Gibberish tracked 2-5 favorite Miss Marissa in the early going, took command before the turn, and finished strong to post a 3 3/4-length victory in Saturday's $150,000 Grade 3 Turnback the Alarm for fillies and mares 3-years-old and up going 1 1/8 miles on the main track at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y.

The 27th edition of the Turnback the Alarm, the first of four stakes on Belmont's 10-race card, saw e Five Racing Thoroughbreds' Gibberish post her first victory in nearly a year, earning her first winner's circle appearance in six starts.

Gibberish, off at 3-1, broke from the outermost post under jockey Dylan Davis as Miss Marissa led the five-horse field through an opening quarter-mile in :23.56 and :47.22 for the half over a fast track.

As rider Kendrick Carmouche kept Miss Marissa to the inside, Davis urged Gibberish up from the three-path, taking command with three-quarters in 1:12.29. Gibberish kept command entering the stretch and easily repelled So Darn Hot's late bid, completing the course in a 1:51.93 final time for her first win since the Treasure Chest on November 27, 2020, at Delta Downs in Vinton, La.

The 4-year-old Lea filly returned $8.20 on a $2 win wager, improving to 5-2-1 in 14 career starts. She increased her career earnings to $340,010.

“I just wanted to come out running and not give an easy lead to Miss Marissa. I saw the four-horse [Firing Carol] was getting more engaged, so I was able to back off since she was doing a little more of the dirty work for me” said Davis, who rode Gibberish for the first time. “She's a big, nice-moving filly. She got to the turn and the half-mile pole and started picking up her stride.

“I didn't want to fight with her too much,” he added. “If you start fighting with her, she tends to back off, just looking at her replays. I let her run until the turn there and once we got in the stretch, she got her stride going even more and she was determined to get to the wire.”

Bred in Kentucky by Dell Ridge Farm, Gibberish had posted a pair of stakes runner-up in the current campaign, starting with the Lady's Secret on June 6 at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J., before finishing 1 1/4 lengths back to Miss Marissa in the Grade 2 Delaware Handicap on July 10 at Delaware Park in Wilmington, Del.

“We knew who the horse to beat was and we knew Gibberish can be forwardly placed,” said Sarah Shaffer, assistant to Joseph, Jr. “The idea was to be close to that. But if there was not much pace in front, we weren't going to restrain our filly. We wanted her to go to the front and get into a comfortable stride. We had another horse kind of creep up in there and put the pressure on, and it set up beautifully for her.”

Shaffer said Gibberish could be ready to embark on the next phase of her career.

“I have a van set up for her to ship out to the horse sale in Lexington. She's headed to the sale,” Shaffer said. “I think broodmare is in her future and I think she deserved it to go out with another stakes win.”

So Darn Hot, trained by George Weaver, bested Jilted Bride by five lengths for second. Miss Marissa ran fourth while Firing Carol completed the order of finish.

Live racing resumes Sunday with Closing Day of the Belmont fall meet. The 10-race card, which features an 11:50 a.m. first post, will feature a pair of stakes in the $150,000 Zagora for fillies and mares 3-years-old and up going 1 1/2 miles on the turf in Race 4 at 1:18 p.m. and the $150,000 Grade 3 Nashua for 2-year-olds in a one-turn mile on the main track in Race 9 at 3:43 p.m.

America's Day at the Races will present daily coverage and analysis of the fall meet at Belmont Park on the networks of FOX Sports. For the complete broadcast schedule, visit https://www.nyra.com/belmont/racing/tv-schedule.

NYRA Bets is the official wagering platform of Belmont Park, and the best way to bet every race of the fall meet. Available to horseplayers nationwide, the NYRA Bets app is available for download today on iOS and Android at www.NYRABets.com.

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