Gail Rice | Horse Racing Free Tips

Medina Spirit Named Florida-Bred Horse of the Year

Medina Spirit (Protonico) was named the 2021 Florida-bred Horse of the Year in a vote by the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association board of directors and announced at the FTBOA Awards Gala held Monday night at the Circle Square Cultural Center in Ocala.

Bred in Florida by Gail Rice, who was honored with her second consecutive Needles Award Monday evening as the Association's small breeder of the year, and Medina Spirit's dam Mongolian Changa (Brilliant Speed) was also named the FTBOA Broodmare of the Year in a vote by the board.

Mrs. John Magnier, Michael B. Tabor, Derrick Smith and Westerberg's Golden Pal (Uncle Mo) was the most decorated Florida-bred on the night having been named the Florida-bred Champion 3-Year-Old Male, Florida-bred Champion Sprinter and Florida-bred Champion Male Turf Horse.

Trained by Wesley Ward, Golden Pal became the first Florida-bred to win two Breeders' Cup events when he dominated the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar. In 2020, the first foal out of Lady Shipman (Midshipman) won the GII Breeders' Cup Juvenile Sprint at Keeneland.

Other winners from FTBOA's Awards Gala included: Shifty She (Gone Astray), Champion Turf Female and Older Mare; Pappacap (Gun Runner), Champion 2-Year-Old Colt; Outfoxed (Valiant Minister), Champion 2-Year-Old Filly; Livingmybestlife (The Big Beast), Champion 3-Year-Old Filly; Firenze Fire (Poseidon's Warrior), Champion Older Male; Sound Machine (Into Mischief), Champion Female Sprinter; Khozan, Stallion of the Year; Live Oak Stud, Breeder of the Year.

The post Medina Spirit Named Florida-Bred Horse of the Year appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Leading Thoroughbred Breeders In North America For 2021: A Different Take

The Jockey Club recently released its list of leading Thoroughbred breeders for 2021, ranking the top 50 individual breeders by money won in North America. It also published a second list that includes breeding partnerships. Those lists can be viewed here.

High-volume breeder Calumet Farm got knocked off its perch atop the list the last two years, with Godolphin out-earning Calumet by nearly $2.4 million despite having less than one-third the number of starters. Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings, WinStar Farm and Kenneth L. and Sarah K. Ramsey rounded out the top five by North American money won.

Calumet was represented by 549 individual starters, more than twice as many as the next largest-sized operation, that of the Ramseys, with 246 starters.

That's all well and good, but I think there are other ways to look at this list that might be more useful to the Thoroughbred breeder than seeing who won the most money.

The accompanying list ranks those same breeders (or at least breeders with five or more starters in 2021) by average earnings per start. (Note: The only top 50 breeder with fewer than five starters was Northern Farm, which won $2,080,000 with its two Japanese-bred starters, Breeders' Cup winners, Loves Only You and Marche Lorraine).

The two people topping the list, Angie Moore ($151,406 per start) and Gail Rice $97,318), each were carried by one major horse. Among her six starters, Moore bred probable Horse of the Year Knicks Go, whose victories in 2021 included the G1 Pegasus World Cup and G1 Breeders' Cup Classic. Rice bred seven starters, led by Medina Spirit, whose 2021 earnings of $3,520,000 include $1,860,000 from the G1 Kentucky Derby. Those earnings are in jeopardy because of the horse's failed drug test.

Third on the list by average earnings per start is the late Edward A. Cox Jr., who was also elevated by one big horse. Hot Rod Charlie's $2,127,500 in earnings made up the bulk of purse money won by Cox-bred runners in 2021. Same goes with St. George Stables, ranked fourth by average earnings per start. St. George bred multiple G1 winner Letruska, who earned $1,945,540 in North America in 2021.

Rounding out the top five on our list is Godolphin, which leads the list by number of stakes winners, 18. Godolphin benefits in average earnings per start and stakes winner through its global operation by only sending mostly proven horses from Europe to compete at the top level in North America.

The top five by average earnings per start also account for the highest average percentage of stakes winners from starters.

Other breeding operations that had a commendable percentage of stakes winners/starters are Sam-Son Farms (9.62%), Live Oak Stud (9.52%), G. Watts Humphrey Jr. (8.86%), Rustlewood Farm (8.82%), W. S. Farish (8.51%), Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings (8,39%) and Hinkle Farms (8.16%).

The post Leading Thoroughbred Breeders In North America For 2021: A Different Take appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Medina Spirit Makes Successful Return In Shared Belief At Del Mar

With his title as 2021 Kentucky Derby winner still in legal limbo, Medina Spirit made his first start since finishing third in the Preakness Stakes, winning the Shared Belief Stakes on Sunday at Del Mar.

The son of Protonico went off as the race's favorite, broke fast, and led at every call to win the one-mile stakes under jockey John Velazquez.

The field of six broke cleanly from the gate, with Velazquez hustling Medina Spirit to the lead, followed by Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby winner Rock Your World on his outside and Reddam Racing's Team Merchants third. Through a first quarter in :22.52 and a half-mile in :46.92, Medina Spirit maintained his front-runner status, with Umberto Rispoli and Rock Your World close, never allowing the Bob Baffert trainee to be more than a three-quarters of a length ahead. They stayed 1-2 into the far turn, as both Rock Your World and Team Merchants loomed to Medina Spirit's outside entering the stretch.

Coming out of the turn, Rock Your World drifted out slightly, causing Team Merchants to veer into Stilleto Boy and forcing the latter to steady before running on down the center of the track. Rock Your World could not gain on Medina Spirit, who tenaciously hung on to his lead throughout the stretch run, flashing under the wire in front. Rock Your World was second, with Stilleto Boy third and The Great One fourth.

The final time for the one-mile Shared Belief Stakes was 1:37.29. Find this race's chart here.

The inquiry sign went up not long after the finish as the Del Mar stewards examined the action coming out of the far turn into the stretch when Team Merchants veered into Stilleto Boy. Because Team Merchants finished behind Stilleto Boy, the stewards decided not to make any changes to the order of finish. Medina Spirit was not affected by the inquiry.

Medina Spirit paid $3.80, $2.40, and $2.10. Rock Your World paid $2.80 and $2.20. Stilleto Boy paid $3.80 to show.

“It went the way we wanted it. Once I made the lead into the first turn, I felt better. He was moving well. When he got on the backside, his ears went up and he was really cruising. When a horse would come to him, he'd pick it up on his own. When we got to the quarter pole, I said 'Let's go; time to pick it up.' And he was right into it. He finished strong and the gallop out was strong, too. He can build off this race,” Velazquez said after the Shared Belief.

“It's a relief. A Shared Belief relief,” Baffert told the Del Mar media office after the race. “It's good that the fans were here for the showdown. I did not have any intention of running him in this race until a couple weeks ago. I started thinking about it, figuring it couldn't come up that tough. Then (son) Bode said, 'You know Rock Your World's running there?' For what this horse has gone through he's such a game horse and I wanted to run him here and see if he likes Del Mar. I've never had a Derby winner come back and win here so that's a first. He looks good and John (Velazquez) said he feels better than ever. There's still some good racing for him out there. We're waiting for the process to happen.”

Bred in Florida by Gail Rice, Medina Spirit is out of the Brilliant Speed mare Mongolian Changa. He is owned by Zedan Racing Stables, who purchased the 3-year-old colt from Whitman Sales for $35,000 at the 2020 Ocala Breeders' Sales Company July Two-Year-Olds and Horses of Racing Age Sale. With this win in the Shared Belief, Medina Spirit has three wins in seven starts in 2021, for a lifetime record of 8-4-3-1.

Additional stories about Baffert's Kentucky Derby positive and ensuing legal battles can be found here.

The post Medina Spirit Makes Successful Return In Shared Belief At Del Mar appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Bloodlines: Kentucky Derby Winner Medina Spirit’s Pedigree Not As Obscure As It Might Seem

The lyrics of Dan Fogleberg's song Run for the Roses, “the chance of a lifetime in a lifetime of chance,” are well understood in assessing Medina Spirit, the winner of the 2021 Kentucky Derby. By measures of pedigree fashion, economic success, or marquee appeal, the dark brown son of Protonico and Mongolian Changa (by Brilliant Speed) was not a star.

But in the Grade 1 classic at Churchill Downs, the colt who cost $1,000 as a short yearling, by an under-appreciated sire and out of a mare who was given away, bucked the odds, flattened the probabilities, and looked like several million dollars as he led from early 'till late and won the Kentucky Derby by a half-length from Mandaloun (Into Mischief).

On pedigree, Medina Spirit is not poorly or even quite obscurely bred. Neither could it be said that his parents are trend setters in bloodstock, at least not until the first Saturday in May.

The colt's sire is the beautifully pedigreed Protonico, a dark bay son of leading sire Giant's Causeway out of the A.P. Indy mare Alpha Spirit, a daughter of Chilean champion and U.S. G1 winner Wild Spirit (Hussonet). The latter won a trio of G1s in her homeland for owner-breeder Haras Sumaya, which also bred Alpha Spirit and Protonico, and in the U.S., Wild Spirit won the G1 Ruffian, was second in the G1 Apple Blossom and Personal Ensign.

Protonico's race record likewise was nothing to sneer at. A three-time winner at the Grade 3 level, the son of Giant's Causeway stepped to win the G2 Alysheba at Churchill Downs in 2015 as a 4-year-old. In addition, he also ran second in the G1 Clark Handicap at Churchill at three and was third in the G1 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont at five.

Perhaps the prejudice against “turf horses” put Protonico in the wrong category, even though he could make a good claim as one of his sire's best dirt performers.

The colt represents the Storm Cat branch of Northern Dancer through the former's best stallion son Giant's Causeway, and this is the second year in a row that a descendant of Storm Cat won the Kentucky Derby after Authentic last year, who comes from Storm Cat through Harlan, Harlan's Holiday, and Into Mischief.

Whereas agent Gary Young was charged with finding his client a Protonico, and Medina Spirit was the result, the dam's side of the Derby winner's pedigree wasn't a commercial model either until her son began racing.

From the first crop of the Dynaformer stallion Brilliant Speed, Mongolian Changa was a big, scopey yearling who appealed to trainer Wayne Rice, and he purchased the filly for $9,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale in 2015. Racing only at two, Mongolian Changa won a maiden special at Presque Isle in August of her juvenile season and earned $25,970 in six starts.

A reported bowed tendon having ended the filly's career at that point, Mongolian Changa was sent to Protonico at Taylor Made Farm in 2017, and Gail Rice bred the Kentucky Derby winner from the mare in 2018. Then as part of a divorce, Rice sold the colt as a short yearling for $1,000 to Christy Whitman, who brought the colt back as a 2-year-old in the June sale of horses in training last year that was postponed to July due to the pandemic.

At that sale, Medina Spirit rocked his three-furlong breeze in :33 flat and earned the highest BreezeFig at the distance last year for his performance at the sale. Neither the time nor the fig brought a rush of buyers to Whitman's barn, but the dark brown colt is a study in how a horse should look when breezing. The breeze video can be seen here.

Gary Young, as agent, acquired the colt for Amr Zedan's Zedan Racing Stables. Zedan had wanted to buy a juvenile by Protonico because he's good friend to the owner-breeder of Protonico, Oussama Aboughazale.

Aboughazale owns Haras Sumaya near Santiago, Chile, and is a primary player in the drama that brought Medina Spirit into being and to prominence. In addition to urging his friend to purchase a Protonico 2-year-old, Aboughazale bred and raced the sire, as well as the dam and second dam.

Although at least one Grade 1 victory is nearly a requirement for a term at stud in Kentucky, the owner of Sumaya Stud wanted his horse to stand in Kentucky and backed him each year with mares. That is a difficult push commercially, however, and the horse stood his first season at Taylor Made Farm, where Medina Spirit was conceived, then stood his second season in 2018 at Darby Dan, and has since been resident at Castleton Lyons on Iron Works Pike north of Lexington.

Castleton's farm manager, Pat Hayes, said that the farm had received more than two dozen requests for seasons in the two days after the Kentucky Derby, and breeders are clearly not having trouble identifying Protonico now that Medina Spirit is a household name.

The post Bloodlines: Kentucky Derby Winner Medina Spirit’s Pedigree Not As Obscure As It Might Seem appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post