All-Sources Handle up at Turfway Meet

All-sources handle rose 17.1% during Turfway Park's Winter/Spring meet which concluded Saturday. In total, more than $170 million was wagered at the meet, nearly $25 million more than 2023.

A total of $18.8 million in prize money, including funds from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund, was distributed across 438 races at the 50-day meet.

With two additional racing days from the 2023 meet, Turfway Park saw an increase of 152 starters.

“Our successful season at Turfway Park would not be possible without the support of all owners, trainers, jockeys and horseplayers,” said Chip Bach, general manager at Turfway Park. “The racing product at Turfway Park has continued to thrive, thanks to the continued investments from Churchill Downs Incorporated and our dedicated staff here at Turfway Park.”

Jockey Luan Machado was a dominant force in the rider standings throughout the Winter/Spring Meet, tallying 62 wins from 289 starts. Machado's win total was 25 more than runner-up Gerardo Corrales and his mounts earned $2.3 million. This was Machado's fourth leading rider title at Turfway Park.

Trainer Eric Foster notched his first title at Turfway Park, winning 15 races from 86 starts. Foster finished one win ahead of Brad Cox and three in front of Juan Cano and John Ennis.

Foster's horses banked $837,777 in purse money while winning at 17%.

Christina Estvanko and Margo Scott led all owners with eight wins. The partnership's horses made 37 starts while earning $176,177.

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Week In Review: Foster’s Work Ethic and Keen Eye for Bargains Propel Rise

Stop me if you've heard this one before: A horse gets claimed for a relatively cheap $30,000, later scores qualifying points at Turfway Park in March to get into one of the sport's most prestigious races at Churchill Downs, then ends up winning a career-defining Grade I stakes at improbable odds on the first weekend of May.

That storyline describes the long-shot career of Rich Strike, who upset the GI Kentucky Derby at 80-1 back in 2022.

But it also could be the 2024 script for newly crowned stakes victress Everland (Arrogate), who was haltered for $30,000 out of a trip-troubled win at Turfway three months ago, and on Mar. 23 captured the Bourbonette Oaks over the same Tapeta surface. The purse of that stakes was worth 10 times the gray filly's claiming price, and, just as importantly, the race awarded 50 qualifying points to get into the GI Kentucky Oaks.

Everland's trajectory is only part of the narrative. Her rise through the ranks is a testament to the upward arc of trainer and co-owner Eric Foster, 46, whose 15 wins are currently tops at the nearly concluded Turfway meet.

Foster's $828,364 in earnings for the season there are second behind only perennial powerhouse conditioner Brad Cox.

Foster Family Stables has been in business for a decade. Eric runs a 16-acre farm with a training track in rural Utica out in western Kentucky, about 45 minutes southeast of Ellis Park. Eric trains, exercises and transports the horses to the races while his wife, Brooklyn, manages the barn. The couple tag-teams, along with some help from their children and an on-track team of assistants, on everything else.

“Me and my wife, we work together. We talk together all the time about [the business],” Foster told Jennie Rees in a post-win video interview for the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protestive Association (KHBPA).

“It's just exciting to win. I tell everybody, we're still happy to win a $5,000 claimer. And to win these bigger races…” Foster's voice trails off in thought, and he has to take a moment to keep his emotions in check.

“I mean, we're leading this meet right now,” Foster said. “It wasn't  even something we had thought about going in [to the start of the season]. Of course, we would want to [be a top stable] if we could, [but] it seems that we've had a little bit better go here than we even expected.”

As a kid, Foster excelled in barrel racing. Then by 17 he was galloping and exercising Thoroughbreds. He initially took out his training license in 2000, but his first foray as a conditioner at smaller tracks like Fairmount, the Woodlands, Ellis, and River Downs lasted only a year, with a 6-for-59 record and a hard-won appreciation for just how difficult a vocation training racehorses could be.

Foster then worked construction jobs as a welder, taking on whatever work he could, which eventually allowed the couple to buy their house and farm on Highway 431 outside of Owensboro.

According to a 2022 profile in The Gleaner that was written by Rees, Foster initially raised cattle, built a barn, and bought a Thoroughbred baby with the intent of re-selling at a subsequent auction. After determining that it might end up being more cost-effective to race the horse themselves, Foster constructed the training track, taking on most of the job himself.

As his training business grew from 2014 onward, Foster got financial backing from a diverse number of clients, including those who would eventually partner with him to own Everland (Bill Wargel, Sidney Karmia's Maxis Stable, and R.K. Eckrich Racing).

Foster began honing a reputation as a trainer who could spot horses who could be acquired for comparatively short money via claims and at the sales, then get those Thoroughbreds to outrun their purchase prices.

Kitodan (Point of Entry) is a prime example. In a partnership with Douglas Miller, Foster Family Racing claimed that gelding for $80,000 in May of 2022, and the 5-year-old has responded with two grass stakes victories (one a Grade III), plus a handful of other stakes performances in which he was only beaten by a couple of lengths. Kitodan was named the KHBPA claimer of the year for 2022, his career earnings have since swelled to $835,237, and is he still competing in graded stakes (he finished eighth on Saturday in the GIII Kentucky Cup Classic).

“Now, we have all the supplies, all the tools,” Foster said. “We have the help now. We have the confidence. We have the [better] jockeys. You know, it's just a matter of everything coming together. We do the blankets and all the therapy that we can do on them to get the horses happy. But you've just got to have good horses, and I think we've just been blessed with some good horses lately.”

Everland is being pointed to her secured spot in the GI Kentucky Oaks on the first Friday in May | Coady

When Foster spotted Everland entered for a $30,000 tag on Dec. 30, 2023, he notified his partners to see who wanted in on what would eventually be a four-way deal. Bred by George Strawbridge Jr. and raced by Augustin Stable with trainer Jonathan Thomas, Everland to that point had been 0-for-3 in maiden special weight races at Kentucky Downs, Woodbine and Turfway. Her pedigree-by Arrogate out of a Tapit mare-stood out.

Off at odds of 6-5, Everland endured a horror trip to win, checking on the first turn of a mile race and then almost getting wiped off her feet in a far-turn scrum. After losing all momentum, she determinedly bulled her way between horses, then scooted up the rail to win by three-quarters of a length, with Turfway announcer Tony Calo exuding in his call about the filly's display of athleticism.

Everland next won a $50,000 starter-allowance for her new connections by 3 1/2lengths at 15-1 odds on Feb. 10. She was then fourth in the Mar. 1 $150,000 Cincinnati Trophy S., a race won by stablemate Maxisuperfly (Optimizer), who was bought by the Fosters for $18,000 as a Keeneland yearling.

In the Mar. 23 Bourbonette, Maxisuperfly set the pace while Everland got caught four wide around the clubhouse turn. Guided to the rail by Abel Cedillo, Everland threaded through on the inside. Turning for home, she briefly got caught on the heels of her tiring stablemate (who finished eighth), then freewheeled up the fence while fending off several fresh challengers, quickening nicely inside the final sixteenth to win by 1 1/4 lengths (82 Beyer Speed Figure).

Despite Everland's sky's-the-limit pedigree, Foster doesn't feel like he stole a hot prospect from the filly's former connections. In the winner's circle after the race, he expressed empathy for anyone faced with the difficult business decision of whether or not to drop a well-meant horse in class for a claiming tag.

“It's hard. You expect them to win, and when they don't you say, 'We've got to do something different,' and you give them three or four chances [before trying a spot that's] a little cheaper,” Foster said. “We do it too. And a lot of time, we're happy that we didn't lose [a claiming dropdown].

“I would have to think that they knew that they would probably lose her,” Foster continued. “A couple of my good horses are claims, and [the outfits I claim from] are good. I wouldn't ever tell anybody that I'm a better trainer. “[But I do] want to be that guy that has horses that run for a long time.

“It's usually the horse that does the running. I don't want to take a whole lot of credit,” Foster said. “We take care of them. We do the best we can. We vet them deep. We feed them good. We do everything to make the health of the horse better. And then it's up to the horse.”

Everland is now 3-0-1 with 237,093 in earnings from seven starts, and with 54 qualifying points, she ranks fourth on the Oaks leaderboard. She is safely in the race, and Foster indicated post-win that his connections intend to run in that Grade I spot–even though Everland has never raced on the dirt. In fact, Foster has never personally witnessed her step onto a non-Tapeta surface.

“Now I'm going to have the same question everybody else has,” Foster said. “If she can run on the dirt, they better look out. That's going to be the thing. We haven't trained her on the dirt. We've left her [at Turfway] since we claimed her. So we're going to move to Keeneland this week coming up and just see how everything goes, and get her on the dirt. And hopefully she loves it.”

Even though Foster is a meet-leading trainer and on the cusp of breaking through in one of the most prestigious races in Kentucky, he is still facing some smaller-outfit business issues, like stabling.

“You know, I don't want to call out anybody, but we don't get the stalls we put in for,” Foster said, alluding to the tight allotments at Churchill and Turfway. “We had the horses to put into them. I think we get taken advantage of a little bit for having our own farm and our own training center….

“We're going into the Oaks here. We wanted some stalls at Churchill coming into this spring, and I was just certain we would get stalls. But you know what? You never know…

Foster said he would have to “map out” a shipping or stabling strategy for Everland.

“I'm not going to take one horse up [to Churchill] and train up to the Oaks. It's going to be a bit of a challenge,” Foster said.

In case you haven't already figured it out, Foster doesn't shy from challenges.

“I make three, four trips a week sometime,” Foster said. “It's over a seven-hour round trip. A lot of those nights are back to back-to-back. I don't always get somebody to ride with me. I have friends that I get to talk to on the phone. Somebody said, 'Well, how do you not get tired?' And I said, 'You know, I just think about my horses.'

“I just go,” Foster added. “I don't start to complain.”

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Point of Entry’s Kitodan Pulls Off Dueling Grounds Derby Upset

Kitodan, claimed for $80,000 just four starts ago, flew home from out of the clouds to pull the 20-1 upset in the GIII Dueling Grounds Derby on Kentucky Downs's rescheduled card Monday. The bay colt settled near the back of the 12-horse field and was well off the pace as Double Clutch (Optimizer) bowled along on the front end through pedestrian splits. Kitodan was well-held by jockey Gerardo Corrales as the field began to bunch up climbing the hill. He was mired in traffic turning for home and was tipped to the center of the track as Double Clutch began to grudgingly give way to a host of challengers. It was Kitodan moving best of all late, surging clear to an authoritative victory.

Kitodan, winner of the Apr. 2 Rushaway S., was claimed from trainer Mike Maker and Paradise Farm and David Staudacher for $80,000 in his very next start, a third-place effort at Churchill Downs May 15. He won the $200,000 Audubon S. in his first start for the new connections June 4 before a fourth-place effort over the main track in the July 2 American Derby. He was most recently fifth in the Aug. 7 Evan Williams Turf Mile S. at Ellis Park.

Pedigree Notes:

Kitodan is the seventh graded winner for Point of Entry. His dam, Divine Presence, produced fillies by Karakontie (Jpn) in each of the last three years. The mare is a daughter of champion Divine Proportions, who also produced group winner Eightfold Path (Giant's Causeway). She was exported to Japan after selling for $50,000 at last year's Keeneland November sale. She had RNA'd, with Kitodan in utero, for $80,000 at the 2019 Keeneland January sale. Her Karakontie weanling filly sold for $87,323 at this year's JRHA July sale.

Monday, Kentucky Downs
BIG ASS FANS DUELING GROUNDS DERBY-GIII, $750,000, Kentucky Downs, 9-5, 3yo, 1 5/16mT, 2:15.41, gd.
1–KITODAN, 124, c, 3, by Point of Entry
1st Dam: Divine Presence, by A.P. Indy
2nd Dam: Divine Proportions, by Kingmambo
3rd Dam: Myth to Reality (Fr), by Sadler's Wells
1ST GRADED STAKES WIN. ($9,000 Ylg '20 KEESEP). O-Foster
Family Racing, Douglas E. Miller & William J. Wargel;
B-Flaxman Holdings Limited (KY); T-Eric N. Foster; J-Gerardo
Corrales. $432,450. Lifetime Record: 15-6-1-3, $779,641. *1/2
to Market King (Into Mischief), GSP, $236,271. Werk Nick
Rating: B. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree or
free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.
2–Grand Sonata, 124, c, 3, Medaglia d'Oro–A. P. Sonata, by A.P.
Indy. ($125,000 RNA Ylg '20 KEESEP). O/B-Whisper Hill Farm,
LLC (KY); T-Todd A. Pletcher. $139,500.
3–Mount Rundle, 118, g, 3, Jack Milton–Beaucoup, by English
Channel. 1ST BLACK TYPE, 1ST GRADED BLACK TYPE. ($7,000
Ylg '20 KEESEP). O-Circle 8; B-Pope & Marc McLean, Pope
McLean Jr. & Taproot Bloodstock, LLC (KY); T-Michelle Nihei.
$69,750.
Margins: 4, 3HF, HD. Odds: 20.74, 4.80, 17.19.
Also Ran: Always Above, Dripping Gold, Ready to Purrform, Speaking Scout, Double Clutch, Running Bee, Red Run, Tallahatchiebridge, Western River. Scratched: Camp David, Russian Tank. Click for the Equibase.com chart or the TJCIS.com PPs. VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.

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Buying From The Back Ring: High-Stakes Snap Judgments At Thoroughbred Auctions

A Book 1 purchase at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale can entail months of careful shopping, from farm visits ahead of the auction to countless inspections, phone calls, and veterinary visits when the horses are on the sales grounds. When Book 5 comes around, and buyers are laying eyes on prospects for the first time in the back walking ring, that process is condensed down to about 20 minutes.

With so many horses going through the ring, and limited time and travel budgets to roam the barns inspecting horses at each consignment, many horsemen in the later books of the marathon sale will elect to find a spot in the back walking ring and inspect the horses as they come through, often standing shoulder-to-shoulder with several others doing the same thing. If they find one that meets their criteria, they'll follow the horse up to the ring to place a bid. Then, once the paperwork is complete, they'll often go back to the same spot and start the process over again.

It's a pressure cooker for buyers and sellers alike, as they weave between nervous horses and each other in a crowded, enclosed area, trying to get the best sightline for a yearling on the walk or hunting down the consignor to glance at the vet report.

The horses purchased in these books are crucial to filling the ranks for pinhookers and trainers around the country, and while the prices might not turn heads the way a seven-figure star might earlier in the sale, the buyers still shoulder a significant risk relative to their initial capital. To succeed in the long-term, their quick-twitch judgement with back ring horses has to be right more often than not.

So, what do keen judges lean on during the bloodstock realm's version of speed dating? For most, it comes down to the walk, the mind, and the budget.

“You can pick apart the book by pedigree at this point as much as you want, but honestly, we just look at individuals, and if we see something that catches our eye, we kind of go from there,” said Delaware Park-based trainer Chelsey Moysey. “You see the horse, see the page, and go on to vet reports and all of that. At this stage in the game, it moves fast, and that's what works for us.

“The biggest thing for me is the walk,” Moysey continued. “I want a good walker, a good shoulder, and a good hip. I can work with anything from the knees down, give or take, but I want to see a horse with a good shoulder and a good hip.”

In addition to how the young horses move, buyers often judged prospects on how they handled their surroundings. A yearling that could handle the sensory overload of the auction process was more likely to warrant a longer look than one hanging on to its composure by a thread.

“They've got to be smart-looking to me,” said Eric Foster, a trainer based in Kentucky and Indiana. “I haven't had a lot of luck with horses that weren't smart. I want to hang around with smart people and smart horses. And never back in the knee. A lot of my rules I make, I wind up having to break them a little bit, so it's hard for me to say, 'I'll never do this,' because then I'll be right there doing it.”

Foster said he comes to the sale with a number in his head in terms of setting a budget, but he allows some wiggle room if he feels he'd be getting adequate value at a higher price.

Moysey also said the horse will dictate the price in her eyes, but her goal was to come back with as many prospects within her overall budget as she could.

“We're still on the lower end of racing, so for us to spend $50,000 on an individual is a lot, but for us to spend $50,000 on two is great,” she said We try to look between the $20,000 to $30,000 range, and if we get something cheaper, great. That isn't happening right now, but we're trying.”

The intent of the buyer can also swing the type of horse they're looking for in the back ring. As buyers looking to race, Foster and Moysey said they were able to forgive certain conditions found on a vet report. Pinhook buyers, on the other hand, will need their horses to stand up to veterinary scrutiny when they're offered again in the spring, and it's hard to have a clean vet report as a 2-year-old if they didn't start with one as a yearling.

Crystal Ryan of South Carolina-based pinhook operation Mason Springs said she prefers to do her homework back at the barns, but the volume of horses in the catalog sometimes makes back ring buying a necessity. When it does, due diligence has to be done quickly, and juggling prospects can be a challenge.

“It all happens so fast, and it's so easy to lose track of one, when you get on one and you have to check on all those things,” she said. “It can be really hard, because one you like might not pass the vet, and then you look and the next horse you like is already going to the ring, and there's not enough time to call it in to the vet.”

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Whereas Moysey was willing to forgive anything below the legs on a horse, Ryan's checklist was the exact opposite.

“First off, I try to look from the legs up, because if I look from the side, I will tend to like something that I probably shouldn't, so I really try to watch that walk, and see how correct they are,” she said. “Of course, there's no perfect horse, so they'll have a little deviation and you have to be a little forgiving.”

Buying to pinhook also means Ryan was not necessarily shopping for the horses she'd like, but the ones she expects potential buyers will like during the 2-year-old sales, both from a physical and pedigree standpoint. She admitted this has taken some fine-tuning of her critical eye.

“It does knock a lot of horses out that I would otherwise really like,” Ryan said. “I have an affinity for a turf horse and that doesn't really fit the bill, so I have to be really careful about that.”

What a back ring buyer does when they fall on a potential purchase can differ wildly, as well. Querying the consignor for the vet report is standard procedure, but how much conversation they have with the agent about the horse and the economics around it depends on the buyer.

“I really kind of keep myself to myself and just do my own thing,” said Midwest trainer John Ennis. “I just paddle my own canoe, really.

“It's a big investment that you're buying, so you want to make sure you're buying something with no soundness issues,” he continued. “Starting out on the right foot is the main thing.”

Book 5 of this year's Keeneland September sale has been unusually robust, and that has given the traditional back ring buyers more competition than they might have expected. Because buyers in the higher books have gotten pushed down into the later sessions, prices have been driven up, and buyers on a tighter budget have had to be even more shrewd than before about picking their spots.

Just because it's later in the sale and the average price has gone down, that doesn't mean it's gotten any easier to buy a horse than it was on the auction's opening day.

“It's hard to have a stone plan for it,” Foster said. “You need to be a little bit lucky.”

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