Gary and Mary West | Horse Racing Free Tips

Chief Steward Barbara Borden Goes On The Record About ‘Life-Changing’ Derby Disqualification

Nearly two years after the historic disqualification of Maximum Security in the 145th Kentucky Derby, chief state steward Barbara Borden has gone on record with the Courier-Journal to discuss the career-defining 22 minutes during which she and her fellow stewards made their decision.

Viewing the Run for the Roses from five different camera angles, Borden, Brooks “Butch” Becraft, and Tyler Picklesimer determined that Maximum Security caused an issue near the quarter pole when he impeded the path of War of Will, who then bumped into Long Range Toddy. For the first time in the race's storied history, it was announced that the horse first across the wire would be disqualified due to interference. Borden and her fellow stewards placed Maximum Security 17th, behind Long Range Toddy, the last horse his action bothered. Preparing to make the race official, Borden turned to Becraft and Picklesimer before pressing the button.

“I said, 'This is a big thing and it's probably going to be life-changing,'” Borden told the Courier-Journal. “That was kind of dramatic at the time, I thought, but with some of the events that occurred afterward, it really wasn't an overstatement.”

The aftershocks of the stewards' decision were far-reaching. A call from Maximum Security's owners less than 30 seconds after the race went official was a prelude to the coming legal challenge. Immediately, Churchill Downs took precautions for Borden's safety; a security guard escorted her to her car after the races, but Borden remembers him backing away as she started it, as if the car might explode.

As the weeks after the Derby wore on, Borden said she received hate mail both at Churchill Downs and at her home. Churchill placed a security guard on her for the remainder of the Spring Meet.

Eventually, the stewards' decision was upheld in court due to a Kentucky law that states the stewards are responsible for “all findings of fact as to all matters occurring during and incident to the running of a race,” and “findings of fact and determination shall be final and not subject to appeal.”

“I knew when I took this job that it was going to be stressful at times,” Borden told the Courier-Journal. “It was a little more than I expected, the fallout, but it didn't deter me at all from wanting to come back. The first time we walked back in this (stewards) room after that happened was several days later. It was a little weird to walk in here, but it didn't deter me at all. We did our job. As much as we didn't come in here looking to do that that day, we did our jobs and we were proud of that.”

Baffert-Trained Medina Spirit Breezes; No Derby Decision On Concert Tour

Zedan Racing Stables Inc.'s Medina Spirit, a game second to undefeated Rock Your World in the Grade 1 Runhappy Santa Anita Derby in Arcadia, Calif., on April 5, worked five furlongs Friday morning in a minute flat as Bob Baffert prepares the $35,000 bargain son of Protonico for the Kentucky Derby on May 1.

“He worked five eighths, galloped out strong and looked good,” said Baffert, who swept the Triple Crown with American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018 and seeks his seventh win in the Run for the Roses, which this year Baffert said “looks very wide open.”

Medina Spirit will leave for Kentucky “either Friday (April 23) or Sunday (April 25),” Baffert said. “I'm not sure yet.”

Meanwhile, a decision on Concert Tour's participation in the Kentucky Derby remained on hold, even though the bay son of Street Sense is already in the Bluegrass State.

Concert Tour was a disappointing third as the 3-10 favorite in last Saturday's Arkansas Derby, but whether he starts in the first leg of the Triple Crown remains undecided.

“Nothing yet,” said Baffert, who trains Concert Tour for owners/breeders Gary and Mary West. “I'll be talking to Gary, but we wanted to give the horse a week and see what's happening.

“He looks good but there's no decision yet.”

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This Side Up: A Tour With Many Dates

Well, I guess in the week we lost Mrs. Chandler–that elegant bridge at the center of five generations (and counting) of Kentucky horse lore–nobody will need reminding to take the long view. Certainly not Shug McGaughey, who will perhaps be reminding the disappointed connections of Greatest Honour (Tapit) how things didn't turn out too badly for Coronado's Quest (Forty Niner) after he was likewise derailed from the Classic trail. Maybe Greatest Honour can now become Shug's fifth winner of the GI Travers S., a race with an even longer history than the one he was targeting on the first Saturday in May.

Even so, the heart goes out to Mr. Adam and his team at Courtlandt Farm. We learn perspective with the passing of years, but horses teach us forbearance every single day. (That's the idea, anyway: some of us remain stubbornly slow to absorb our lessons…) But there's no getting away from it. Greatest Honour's absence further weakens a GI Kentucky Derby already deprived of the charismatic Life Is Good (Into Mischief); and reiterates how ruthlessly the race secures its mystique. Because from the moment every single Thoroughbred colt slithers into the straw, his breeders will already know the date–set in stone, albeit three Mays hence–when he will need to be fit and firing if he is to fulfil their ultimate dream.

True, last year was an unprecedented exception, as will be bitterly remembered by those who presented Nadal (Blame) and Charlatan (Speightstown) in imperious condition on the first Saturday in May. Oaklawn stepped up to the plate that day, after Churchill had unilaterally subverted the whole calendar (making a gamble, of course, that didn't pay off anyway). Water under the bridge, by now, and anyway imperfection is a constant of our species–and especially pardonable, as such, in such bewildering times. Oaklawn themselves, after all, arguably diluted their service to the breed by dividing a race that might just as well have been extended, exceptionally, into a 10th furlong.

This time round we must settle for a field that depends pretty exorbitantly on one colt. After the defections already suffered, certainly, we don't want that blanket of roses to lose any more petals. Concert Tour (Street Sense) arrives with an immaculate record to date, and bids to emulate Sunny's Halo (Halo), Smarty Jones (Elusive Quality) and American Pharoah (Pioneerof The Nile) by adding the Arkansas and Kentucky Derbys to the GII Rebel S.

Bob Baffert permitted himself comparisons with American Pharoah himself in the ease and swagger of Concert Tour's Rebel performance and, given how most of these were strewn hopelessly in his wake that day, the most intriguing question this time is whether their trainer will now extend the similarities by seeking some evidence of versatility. If he Concert Tour can rate as readily as Pharoah, that will obviously open up options in the 20-runner stampede at Churchill. Such an experiment, moreover, may well result in a more meaningful test here, as Caddo River (Hard Spun) clearly did not respond well when denied a chance to throw down the gauntlet in the Rebel. It was almost like he was stamping his feet and hollering that everybody knows you don't give an uncontested lead to horses from that barn.

As we've noted in the past, it was in the 1993 Arkansas Derby that Ben Glass saddled Rockamundo (Key To The Mint) for a 108-1 success that introduced patrons Gary and Mary West to the next level in their adventure on Turf. A lot of their success since traces to the happy fact that they were able to persuade Glass to stay on as racing manager after he quit training a couple of years later, and the homebred Concert Tour has the wholesome two-turn pedigree central to this program.

The Wests also bred Life Is Good, selling him for $525,000 as a yearling, but were already amply versed in the kind of vicissitudes that can befall a Derby horse. Two years ago they discovered that there are zero guarantees even if you not only show up on the day to run the race of your life, but also beat 19 rivals to that winning post. Maybe Concert Tour is the colt to redress their experience with Maximum Security (New Year's Day); maybe not. Who can say? Because the way destiny operates, in selecting a single member of the crop for that place in the Derby annals, is entirely unreadable.

None of us, then, can determine our fulfilment with Thoroughbreds solely on a two-minute roll of the dice in a race for which the odds of being both eligible and fit are so enormous. You wouldn't, for instance, want Whitmore (Pleasantly Perfect) to stand or fall on his performance under the Twin Spires: he was stone last that day, but while the winner Nyquist (Uncle Mo) has meanwhile sired an Eclipse Award winner, Whitmore was himself honored at the same ceremony at the age of eight, having discovered his true metier in sprinting.

And, to be fair, he's the real star turn on this card. The old gelding makes his fifth appearance in the GIII Count Fleet H., in which race only another champion, Mitole (Eskendereya), has ever beaten him.

Currently tied with 1965 Arkansas Derby winner Swift Ruler (Sir Ruler) on seven stakes wins at Oaklawn, he stands on the brink of the outright record. Whatever happens, he is already a Hot Springs legend and a huge credit to Ron Moquett.

Let's not forget that in terms of their optimal maturity, all these sophomores we obsess about are barely adolescent. Unfortunately, we tend to permit Thoroughbreds their full racetrack potential only by removing their competence to recycle at stud the hardiness they can then explore. That's one of the reasons I hope that Whitmore's contemporary Tom's d'Etat excels at WinStar. Because sometimes the only way horses can teach us the long view is if we let them play a long game.

The post This Side Up: A Tour With Many Dates appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Bloodlines Presented By Mill Ridge Farm: Concert Tour Flies The Homebred Banner For Wests

There is a tide in the affairs of horses, which taken at the flood, leads on to the Kentucky Derby.

With apologies to Shakespeare, there's more than a grain of truth in that sentence. Breeders begin the quest for the classics with purchases, sometimes quite expensive ones. Then come attempts at the major races and the stages of building a breeding operation to produce young prospects for the classics. If allied with confident planning, nerve, and patience, breeders have the potential to flower a breeding program that produces classic prospects with some regularity.

Such is the case with Gary and Mary West.

In 2019, the West stable had a pair of classic prospects, one on each coast, and both made it to the Kentucky Derby. Unbeaten in four previous starts, their homebred Maximum Security (by New Year's Day) wintered in Florida, won the Grade 1 Florida Derby, and led the field past the wire in the 2019 Kentucky Derby. Although subsequently disqualified, Maximum Security was named champion of his division for the annual Eclipse Award.

In the same classic, the Wests' other Derby performer was the 2018 juvenile champion Game Winner (Candy Ride), based in California with trainer Bob Baffert. Although beaten in the Kentucky Derby, Game Winner had the scope and ability of a classic colt. The dark bay had been bred by Summer Wind Farm in Kentucky and sold to the Wests for $110,000 at the Keeneland September sale in 2017.

This year, the Wests again are closely connected to a pair of colts prepping for the classics. The first is one that they sold; the Into Mischief colt Life is Good, who is unbeaten in three starts, was auctioned to China Horse Club and Maverick Racing for $525,000 at the 2019 Keeneland September sale.

The colt that the Wests kept is Concert Tour (by Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense), who is likewise unbeaten in three starts, including the G2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn on March 13. Bred in Kentucky by Gary and Mary West Stables Inc., Concert Tour is out of the Tapit mare Purse Strings.

The Wests bought Purse Strings through their racing manager and bloodstock representative Ben Glass for $240,000 at the 2012 Keeneland September yearling sale. At the races, Purse Strings raced a dozen times in maiden special company, winning the last of those at Churchill Downs on Nov. 29 as a 4-year-old. Glass recalled that Purse Strings “had all the talent in the world and should have broken her maiden a half-dozen times. But she was never fully sound,” he said.

Instead, “she always had little problems: a shin, a suspensory, and so forth that kept her from being early to the races and from staying in hard training so she could show her best.”

A winner of $105,960, Purse Strings had contested a series of good maiden races, finishing second a half-dozen times and third twice before graduating to the winner's circle. Sent to the paddocks for the 2016 breeding season, Purse Strings produced Concert Tour as her second foal.

The chestnut Purse Strings was notably the best racer from her dam, the Mt. Livermore mare My Red Porsche, who is a half-sister to the stakes winner, My White Corvette (Tarr Road). The latter produced champion Stardom Bound from the first crop by Tapit (Pulpit), and that gray filly's five Grade 1 successes prompted a mating between My Red Porsche and the great sire.

The result was Purse Strings, and even with physical issues, she clearly was a useful filly and has passed on more than that to her progressive son Concert Tour. The mare has a yearling colt by champion Lookin at Lucky and is in foal to American Freedom (Pulpit), who won the G3 Iowa Derby, was second in both the G1 Haskell and Travers, and is now a stallion at Airdrie Stud in Kentucky. Due in mid-April, Purse Strings will be bred back to Street Sense.

To produce horses of this caliber with consistency, the Wests and their advisers are responsible for balancing optimism and pragmatism, for considering both physique and pedigree. The responsibilities for all this are considerable. Pedigree adviser Sid Fernando noted that “Werk Thoroughbred Consultants advises on matings, and we're happy to be part of the team for Gary and Mary West, Ben Glass, and their other elite support staff.”

One of the benefits of managing well the many facets of breeding racehorses is the satisfaction when the results go as planned.

A birth notice of note: Beach Walk, the dam of unbeaten Life is Good, foaled a half-brother by Candy Ride on March 15. The mare will be bred back to Into Mischief, the sire of Life is Good.

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